His Majesty's Dragons: World at War

[dragnl0rd]

The pair tried to catch their breath as they soared at the end of the three lightweight conga line. They watched to the side as the Norwegian aimed at the Italian less willing to deal with two lightweights at once, and spared glances below at the Regal's predicament. Marcus' eyes widened as his gaze returned to the razorback he was shadowing. It's amazing the ideas that struck you while you were fatigued.

"Alacritas, I think we can solve two issues at once." He spoke quickly to his dragon, Alacritas' own eyes showing unabashed wonder at his Captains new found insanity. Alacritas spoke as quietly as he could to Marcus with one question.

"But... what if you black out?"

"If I black out, make best speed back to the Norwegian's cover and request new orders." Marcus hurriedly wrapped the extra slack in the harness straps around his legs and arms, hoping his meticulous maintenance of their gear would be enough to allow them to hold. "No more time, lets go!"

There were no more words as Alacritas poured on speed, coming up from behind and slightly below the Italian beast. He reached out with his claws and grabbed the end of the razorback's tail, one of the two places there were no spikes, hoping to get a clean grab, but willing to deal with a bit of pain if it wasn't. The dragon wrenched into a hard 180 degree roll to the right, aiming to break the larger dragon's tail. Instead of letting go once he was upside down in relation to his foe, he pulsed his wings once and pulled himself down under the razorback while swinging a hopefully injured dragon almost twice his weight down over his head like a spiked hammer, letting gravity do much of the work. Alacritas held on as best he could through sheer force of will, his wings tucked to his sides as he struggled to get some sense of aim with this dragon bola he'd become a part of while Marcus did little more than clutch the winchester's neck has hard as he could and try to keep breathing through the massive increase in G-Forces.

Alacritas' target was a nimbus below them. It didn't matter which one... it didn't even matter if this worked. Merely getting close enough might be enough to make one of them disengage from the Regal. He knew he couldn't maintain a grip on 4 tons of dead weight for too long, especially since physics was doing everything it could to split them apart. His only hope was to gain the proper direction on the spin to ensure the razorback would fly to the side of the copper, where it might intercept a nimbus' body on the trio's death spiral towards the ocean. When he could hold on no longer, Alacritas released his grip, and began focusing on regaining his own flight control before he hit the ocean. "Marcus, are you okay?"

[LadyTevar]

Judith was watching all around them. She was not surprised to see Frostfell drawing the Tuscans away, she was sure he'd turn on them viciously when they were right where Reynolds wanted them. The Regal Copper's plight made her wince, but there was really nothing she and Jeb could do. Even Jeb's best drive would get there about the time the Regal hit ocean. That left Haakon, who was obviously going for the Razorback on Jeb's tail, and the other Razorback who was less than a hundred yards off their...

"Wha' in God's Name is tha' fool doin'?!?!" Judith exclaimed, as the WINCHESTER grabbed for the tail of the Razorback and started trying to pull it into a spiral.

Jebediah's head jerked over to see before he went back to flying. "Ah thought Kunja was th' crazy one," he replied. "Bu' Ah see Haakon's comin' our way, so warn him Ah'm gonna make sure th' Porcypine don' run."

Judith keyed the mike. "Jeb to Haakon. We're turnin' on th' Razorback, follow us in."

That was all she had time for as Jebediah once again showed off his aerial dexterity by nearly bending himself in half, twisting his body around as he dropped less than half his body-length in altitude in order to fly back the way he'd came, straight at the Razorback in what looked like a traditional draconic Pass.

Of course, nothing Jebediah did fighting was ever truly traditional. "Hang on... Ah'm gonna hook 'em an' try fer his belly." If the Razorback took the bait, Jeb had it all planned out. Get close, pull the outer fingers of his wing tight so just the alar-claw stuck out, and hook one of the spines to swing about and hit the beast's belly. Tucking the wing in would hopefully prevent getting a hole in the wingsail, something Jeb was not looking forward to. Judith herself simply reloaded her tommygun and waited for the chance to spray some bullets at the enemy dragon.

[Dark Silver]

Despite it's injuries and the distance it had to travel, gaining on the Nemesis was slow going. The beast was still almost as fast as they were, and Roberts didn't like this.

"Sir," shouted Lt Colson, Roberts first officer, from his place on the dragon's right shoulder, "I don't think we should board! Nemesis' are ornery bastards." Roberts looked over his shoulder , before nodding - he had been second guessing the original order as they made the loop, and saw how mobile the Nemesis continued to be.

"Belay boarding actions! Prepare for broadside," Roberts shouted back, hearing the orders relayed down until the wind took the words out earshot. "Thundercracker, how much longer?"

The dragon had been calculating the electrical charge in his "gut", feeling it build with each flap of his wings. The energy gathered in the specialized organs littered throughout his body, and the delicious tingling sensation reached it's peak, telling him it was time.

"I can do it now Roberts," came the sonorous reply of the rainbow beast. Roberts patted the dragon's neck, and called back "Brace for assault! Fire at will!"

Thundercracker didn't roar, the Technicolor monster was already in position, having been following the Nemesis, trailing it, getting into boarding position....a simply adjustment - banking to port a few degrees - brought him directly behind the beast. Heavy wingbeats of the serpentine dragon brought him at last into effective range, and his jaws opened once more, as a silver bolt of electricity bridged the gap between Dragon and flying lizard.

[JimmyTheCannon]

As Jimmy glanced back to check on their pursuer, he caught sight of what the clearly insane scout and his dragon were attempting.

"Oh, hell..." The American captain glanced around quickly; seeing that the Smoke-Devil and the Norwegian had the other Razorback well in hand, he nudged Faustus. "Turn around, Faust - I've got a bad feeling Captain Wainwright and Alacritas are going to need our help."

The Bonetail turned his head, spying the predicament the Brit had gotten himself into. "Well, at least we're officially not the craziest pair in the theater." Pulling up into a half-loop, then rolling back upright to complete the Immelmann turn, the dragon's wings beat hard, picking up speed as they watched the Winchester's maneuver. If it worked, great - but if it didn't, they were ready to dive on the Razorback and distract him with a swing of the tail while Alacritas got himself and his captain to safety.

[Hawkwings]

Despite the warnings from the lookouts and the rapid fire shells into the faces of the Italian mediums, they still managed to close the distance and with practiced precision impacted and grappled Luna. Here, several thousand feet in the air, it was too low to fight them off before hitting the water, but too high to manage a crash landing at less than terminal velocity.

Of course dragons were tough, but humans were significantly squishier. And riding a dragon all the way down to the ground at terminal velocity was not something that was generally survivable. With one wing pinned there was no way Luna was able to arrest the fall, even if she had the strength to. No, in no more than a dozen seconds, nearly 100 tons of dragon and equipment was going to hit the water. Unless the Nimbuses let go and tried to fly off, which they could still do if they aborted their suicide grapple in the next three or four seconds.

Luna wasn't about to let that happen. Without prompting, and with the experience of having done something similar before, Luna grabbed the Nimbus in front of her with her hugely strong claws, digging into dragon hide and wrenching one of the medium's wings and it's harness into a good handle. The Nimbus was not going to fly away now, but more importantly, it was going to be a shield for Luna, breaking the water ahead of her and hopefully turning the crash into something more survivable. Luna tucked her head in under the Italian's softer underside, and grabbed the belly with her hind claws as well. Now the two were in an awkward-looking hug of imminent death, with Luna bodily shoving the medium into the proper position to act as a shield. As a bonus, getting crushed between incompressible water and 70 tons of dragon above was sure to squish the organs right out both ends of the Nimbus.

Then there was the issue of the other annoying one, the one pinning Luna's wing down. In the few seconds she had available, Luna didn't think she was able to throw the other one off with just her wing, so avoiding injury was the next priority. She folded the one wing, and with the other tried to guide the fall enough so that the soon-to-be-squished Nimbus was below. She would have to deal with that one later, assuming this plan worked.

As Luna figured how to position herself the best way for impact, her crew was busy preparing to jump and pull parachutes. The squad of Royal Marines was first to leap into the air, having more training and practice with these sort of situations. For the crew, and Emily, this was rather much more rare. Still, these were veteran dragon crew and more than one had done a midair bailout before. No words were necessary, everyone knew that staying onboard would be suicide. All that remained was to grab important gear, aim for a clear patch of sky, and leap with all your might. Like a good captain, Emily stayed until she was sure that all her crew were bailing, but before she could move, her crew chief cinched down her parachute straps, picked her up, and leapt off the harness. After wrapping the much smaller girl in his huge arms, he pulled his own chute and held on tight. Emily held with all her might, having never done a tandem jump without harness before, but after a sharp jerk and a moment of terror, she found herself floating down to the water at just a slightly higher speed than normal.

Off in the distance, she spotted more parachutes floating down, a Royal Marine pulling his chute at an absurdly low height, and then a speeding blue-red-gold-blue shape hitting the water with a gigantic splash.

[General Havoc]

One could question the loyalty of an Apennine Razorback. Dragon experts since the time of Rome had been doing that. One could question the dedication of a Razorback, the willingness to commit wholeheartedly to a cause, for the rustic Samnite dragons were infamous for keeping their own council no matter what, their concerns parochial and personal. But nobody, or at least nobody sane, ever accused Razorbacks of being incompetent. When a twenty-ton midweight with a thagomizer strapped to its tail lunged at you with an obvious intention of beating your brains out, any Razorback worthy of the name, like most of the rest of the dragons in existence, knew precisely what they had to do.

Haakon converted much of his diving speed into forward momentum, sailing towards one of the Razorbacks at high speed, trying to cut off its escape outboard. At the same time, the strange agate-blue lightweight it had been chasing turned on it, attacking it inboard, trying to box the Razorback in and herd it towards the more dangerous midweight. As such, the Razorback did something that, given the information it had available to it, must have seemed perfectly reasonable. It turned on Jebediah, intending to simply crush the courierweight American with its bladed hide and superior size, and teach it the folly of attempting to interfere with something that outclassed him.

That plan did not go well.

As the Razorback extended its claws to snare Jebediah, lowering its wing in one final beat, he was struck in turn as Jeb's winghook slammed directly into the Razorback's shoulder and stuck fast. Instantly, the Razorback's momentum was aborted as his wing was violently wrenched backwards. The Razorback swung inward as his wing collapsed, but Jeb was a mountain dragon, easily the equal if not the better of any Razorback for maneuverability, and by the time the Razorback's blades and spikes were swinging towards him, he was already past, his hook gouging the Razorback down its flank and across its chest as he slingshot around the dragon and launched himself obliquely away from his wounded target.

If the sky had literally fallen on the Razorback, the shock could not have been greater, for never in its most violent nightmares had the Razorback imagined that the lightweight dragon it had targeted was capable of such a thing. Disoriented and dumfounded, the Razorback's feeble counterattack was laughably late, delivered when Jeb was already thirty yards away, shooting towards the other Razorback like a meteor.

But worst of all, the Razorback, so focused a moment ago on its job, had just now forgotten Haakon, who loomed overhead like a thundercloud waiting to break.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

The other Razorback was having a better time of things.

What had possessed a Winchester scout dragon to hurl itself at the Razorback and attempt something like this was unclear to anyone, least of all the Razorback, but for all Alacritas' efforts, he was attempting to roll and hurl through the air a dragon that outmassed him by two and a half to one, and this was not something destined to end well. He evaded the Razorback's slash, and managed to seize the tail, but when he twisted, in an attempt to throw the larger dragon overhead, the result did not bear out his expectations. The tail of a Razorback was made of strong stuff, and all Alacritas contrived to do with his maneuver was pull himself in towards the spined monster. The result was predictable. The two dragons collided along Alacritas' shoulder and right flank with the force of two automobiles colliding, driving a half dozen cruel spikes directly into the Winchester's hide.

If there was a silver lining to all this, the impact confused the Razorback about as much as it did the Winchester, and left it unable to counterattack effectively. Its rear claws scrabbled and tore at the smaller dragon, but the angle was such that it could find no purchase beyond slicing a few harness cords and scraping some scales. It bucked and twisted, but could find no leverage to pry the Winchester off of itself, as both dragons plunged downwards, neither one concentrating on remaining at altitude, both consumed with trying to find some way of accosting one another when the sound of death incarnate interrupted everything.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Away, away, and away some more, Frostfell led the Tuscan Raiders, who followed him beyond the range of guns, either because they did not seek to be assaulted by his prominently-displayed quad-mount or because they were tired and saw no reason to exert themselves overly in his pursuit. They remained extended away from the rest of the Italian squadron, their guns trained on the White Devil, as though daring him to attack. No cries or pleas for aid from the rest of the Italian formation could divert the two heavy midweights from their course, as they climbed slowly, pacing Frostfell and preparing for the assault that they knew would soon come.

No cries, that was, before the mother of all cries split the battlefield, and everyone forgot what they were doing...

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Of all the lunatic things that the Nimbuses had imagined the Regal Copper they had assaulted doing, this was probably the last. The Nimbus attached below the Copper had several seconds in which to consider the awful, terrible situation it had been placed into, considerations that sent it into an abject panic. Desperately, the dragon bucked and fought, trying to tear itself free, but a Regal Copper that wished to keep a midweight where he was could do just that, at least for the time required for Copper, Nimbus, and everything else to crash into the ocean.

The crew of the Nimbus, much as that of the Copper, knew what was coming. They leaped from their dragon in clouds of silken parachutes, plummeting towards the deceptively-calm waters. Two of the Italians failed to get clear and were dashed against the falling dragons, bouncing like debris into the water with nothing to slow their fall. The Nimbus above the Copper released the Copper's wing, braking and letting the two others fall away below, helpless to halt what was about to happen to its fellow.

The dragons hit the water with a thunderclap that echoed across the waters, instantly lost beneath a geyser of water that leaped hundreds of feet into the air. Waves of water forty feet high radiated from the center of impact, slapping several of the descending crewmen from the sky like flyswatters. Luna had the Nimbus gripped with all the strength of a mighty heavyweight, but the impact tore the two dragons apart from one another almost contemptuously, and the last thing she saw was a wall of water flying at her face before she was knocked senseless.

But only for a moment.

As the spray cleared and the waves subsided, both dragons were left floating in the midst of the water, surrounded by the blossoms of fallen parachutes, marking where crewmen were left swimming in the water. The Nimbus lay motionless, floating on one side, the water directly around it darkening slowly. Several dozen yards away, Luna lay in a stupor, so stunned by the force of impact that she could not begin to determine the extent of her own injuries, nor to defend herself should someone decide to intervene.

And someone did.

The second Nimbus had witnessed everything that had happened, and roared in rage at the Copper that had lain its fellow low. Jackknifing in mid-air, the Nimbus hurtled towards the water, diving straight for the Copper. Yet rather than abandon dragon, the crew of this Nimbus instead quickly put on breathing apparatuses and facemasks, and holstering their firearms, seized harpoon guns from weapons chests, moments before the Nimbus dove into the water a dozen yards from the Regal Copper, and turned on her helpless form with all the vengeance of a Great White Shark preparing to assault a wounded Blue Whale.

Neither one of them heard the thunderstorm above. Neither one of them would have stopped if they had.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

It should have been so simple.

The Nemesis was wounded, stunned, literally and psychologically, confronted by surprise by a dragon it had not calculated for or planned on, whose capabilities had been unknown until revealed so forcefully, so suddenly. It was at the tail end of a long chase, unable to outrun its pursuer, whose weapons were longer range than its own, and could dance out of combat should it want to, and re-engage at whatever opportunity it wanted. It was, perhaps, therefore forgivable that Thundercracker took the Nemesis lightly, deeming its reputation to be smoke and mirror, or perhaps the concern of dragons lesser than he, for he was a Xolotl, warrior-prince of the Aztec empire, a demigod among dragons whose lightning would drive forth the lesser beasts who dared name themselves his peers.

All this was forgivable, for the Nemesis was as alien to the Xolotl as the Xolotl was to the Nemesis. But forgivable or not, overconfident or not, what transpired next was something nobody, not Thundercracker, not the other British dragons, not even the remainder of the Italian squadron, had dared imagine happening in their darkest nightmares.

The Nemesis turned.

It didn't turn completely, for Thundercracker would easily have reacted to that, but it pulled around as hard as it could as Thundercracker slid into position behind, raising its left wing and dropping its right. The Nemesis could not possibly come about entirely before Thundercracker fired his lethal blast of lightning, yet he seemed to be making every effort to do just that. And as Thundercracker opened his jaws to let loose the lightning bolt, the Nemesis suddenly arched its neck.

What purpose these various maneuvers might hold remained a mystery right up until the lightning bolt struck.

It hit the Nemesis between the shoulderblades, arcing towards the closest, most exposed piece of metal, in this case the radio aerials mounted within the semi-sheltered radioman's station. The radios instantly exploded into electrical death, incinerating the radioman and literally blasting the fragile transmitters into pieces. Current coursed through the harness, catching another man whose grounding was not perfect and slaying him as effectively as the Nemesis' poison would have. The dragon itself emitted a roar as the current coursed into its hide, causing its wingbeats to falter and its muscles to contract. But none of those things were important, for the one, single effect of that bolt of lightning that mattered was that, due to the Nemesis' positioning as the bolt was discharged, a significant portion of the current passed directly into the body of the Nemesis' captain, and cooked him like a sausage.

And as Thundercracker, his captain, and the rest of his crew watched, they could see, as plain as though written in ink upon its scales, the look in the eye of the terrible Sicilian Nemesis just prior to the breaking of the terrible storm that told each and every one of them one thing. No matter how great and terrible the Xolotl may have thought itself, how mighty its unshakable countenance was, it was dealing with a monster for whom the terms 'great' and 'terrible' had been invented.

And many other terms besides.

It had been a Sicilian Nemesis that entered the turn. It was not one that exited it. The creature that exited the turn was a wild, slavering beast, a tornado of violence and annihilation twisted into the shape of a dragon. Twenty-four tons of anger and unfathomable rage exited the turn, its jaws slavering with venom, eyes rolled back in a fit of incandescent fury. The sound it emitted was hideous, warbling thing, a scream of rage and anguish that pierced to the heart of every dragon in the air and echoed across the waters to bathe the coasts of Spain in bile. The remaining crew of the Nemesis deserted it, leaping to the relative safety of the open air at the first sign of the blood-rage, but the dragon did not feel them go, did not feel the residual effects of the electricity still coursing through its body. It did nothing but howl pain and hatred to the skies, like some lower demon seeking to conjure up the apocalypse, its wings flaying the air as it clawed its way forward with every ounce of speed its massive form could muster, a seeker of death and ruin, with only eyes for the technicolored lightning-thrower.

Thundercracker had believed himself to be attacking a Special Weapons dragon. What he had actually attacked was the Beast of Revelations. And the Bowl Judgments were about to commence.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

A cloud of dust obscured everything to the Typhon and Weyekin who were desperately flying to the aid of the Victorian Reaper, but only for an instant, as Kunja leaped into the air to leap up and onto the Speckled Bavarian that was flying towards him at a truly absurd rate of speed. Yet if the Bavarian was surprised, she gave no sign at all. Only the greenest of lightweights would expect their enemy to obediently stand on the ground and await decapitation, and subtle though he might have sought to be, Kunja could not entirely conceal his intention to jump up, or at the very least, to not jump left or right. The dust was a surprise, but the Bavarian was by then too close to abort even if she had chosen to, and she simply closed her eyes and hoped for the best with a final, extra burst of speed.

The collision between the two dragons was ringing.

The Bavarian had snapped her wing open at the last second, the better to slay Kunja if he happened to be fool enough to actually stay where he was. He did no such thing of course, but there simply was not adequate time for Kunja to jump up and come back down atop the Bavarian, not at the speeds the Bavarian was moving. As such, the outstretched wing caught Kunja in the chest like the blade of an axe, splitting his combat armor and slicing into his hide. Yet fast and strong as the Bavarian might have been, she had nothing close to the required force to cut a Victorian Reaper in half, and her wing crumpled even as the blades snapped loose, causing the Bavarian to spin halfway round and crash, headfirst, into Kunja's flank. The blades remained wedged in Kunja's upper ribcage as the Bavarian's wing came free, and before Kunja could so much as blink, the Bavarian bounced off him, flipped twice, and smashed into the ground like a collapsing piece of furniture, sliding to a stop a hundred yards away in a furrow of loose earth and destroyed wheat stalks.

To the Bavarian's credit, it righted itself almost immediately, leaping back to all four feet with an athleticism that Albatros himself might have admired. One wingblade missing, her captain badly shaken, and two enormous dragons bearing towards her, the Bavarian seemed to decide that discretion was the better part of valor, and leaped into the sky once again, flying away at ground level to the north, though where she was going was not presently obvious. What was obvious was that the terrible impact had to have shaken the small German Lightweight up, for she was no longer flying nearly as fast as she had before, and would be hard pressed now to evade the pursuit of any of the Allied dragons on hand, should they elect to engage in one.

[Cynical Cat]

No one who heard that scream could be unmoved, not even those so distant that only faint echo reached them. "Bloody hell," said Nathan as he recognized it and his blood turned to ice. There were few things he still feared, but he could not hear that and be unmoved. To do so was to be human and that he still was.

"Sir," said his radioman. "The squadron is reporting that the Sicilian is turning and that it's in blood rage."

"I know," said Nathan.

Frostfell also recognized that sound, but he was Wendigo and it did not affect him as it did Nathan. When he was younger Frostfell had been arrogant and aggressive, eager to prove himself to be the great dragon he knew himself to be but that was before he had won the victories the now possessed. That terrible, cocky eagerness had been supplanted with an even more fearsome and cruel cleverness.

The Sicilians were justly reviled as an evil breed, but in the north the sadistic cruelty of the Wendigo was legend. They were a breed notorious for crippling other dragons and then departing to watch them die by inches, vainly struggling to survive in hospitable terrain with no hope of rescue. The sound of a distant enemy's pain was something to be savored and more importantly, more terribly, it was a winning argument. It was the hinges of the gates of Hel being struck and Nidhoggr being unleashed. It was horn that signaled the beginning of the murder-make.

"Nathan," said Frostfell, "the plan's not working. The Antichrist is among them and fighting. If things had worked out differently, drawing the Tuscans away would have worked, but it isn't. The Tuscans have flown far and are a long way from home. They won't have much of a stomach for a fight. For them it's not worth it. They'll break off if it goes bad for them, they'll be thinking too much about how to get back home. The squadron needs our help."

For a moment there was silence. Nathan knew that was only half the reason, but he could not ignore the truth in his dragon's words. "Turn," he said and Frostfell banked back towards the enemy. Reynolds turned the quad mount towards the Tuscan on the left. The Italian dragon's wings and shoulders would be his targets. "All other guns, suppress the enemy. Frostfell, I'll hit the one on the left. Take out the one on the right."

Frostfell's roar of approval was almost as loud as the cry of the Nemesis. Finally he would get a chance to bloody his claws and taste the sweet blood of the enemy. He would eat his foes pain and drink their despair. The Great White Devil, the Devourer of Men, Hel's Cold Hearted Fury, tore the through the air. The distance between him and his foes was considerable, but the murder-make had truly begun.

[Comrade Tortoise]

The sound of pain and anguish reverberated through the air, stabbing into Haakon's heart and leaving him very much afraid for Bjorn. As if the scream had reminded him deep down inside that the pain of the Nemesis could one day be his. Still, he could not wrap himself protectively around his tiny tiny Thane until everyone was safely back on the ground.

Haakon had choices. Oh did Haakon have choices. He had the option of laying waste to a razorback, diving down to save Lily, or confronting a Nemesis in blood-rage. That's right. A Nemesis in blood rage.

Haakon was somewhat torn. He looked up longingly at the enraged Sicilian, wanting to engage it and earn his place among his new comrades (and put the Nemesis out of its misery. Even if it did not deserve such kindness). He also looked at the Regal Copper several thousand feet down in the ocean, about to be set upon by sharks having through some contrivance or another survived a fall from altitude and from the looks of it, killed one of the Nimbi.

"Dont do it." Bjorn said. "It is madness. We have talked about this."

"I know. It was just a dream I had for a moment"

Haakon said this while swooping down on the stricken and dazed razorback. He aimed his foreclaws for the dragons's alar-humeruses that were not heavily spiked and were a large target, twisting his body as he did so in order to lay his stomach along the smaller dragon's side so as to not put his full weight on the spikes covering the beast, and to give him relatively safe reach over to clamp down with his powerful jaws in the most tender part of the neck. From there, he would turn into a dive back toward Luna, savaging the smaller dragon with his steel-sheathed rear talons, pulling its wings out of their sockets (or try to), and drive his teeth into its jugular while cutting off the air supply.

Even if the maneuver was not perfectly executed the damage the spikes could do to him was far less than he could accomplish against his enemy. An acceptable risk. He aimed to reduce the Razorback to a blood-soaked shell of its former self before he would need to release it to its fate and pull out of his dive in time to lay waste to a Nimbus. Two goals accomplished in one fell swoop, if the plan at least loosely resembled reality.

[Dark Silver]

The proverbial train wreck occurred right before their eyes - and there was literally nothing which could be done about it.

In one second, Thundercracker had been lined up for what should have been a simple "Bolt and Strafe" maneuver, and just as he released the bolt, the peel of thunder split the air....the Sicilian Nemesis twisted.

It was a ludicrous maneuver, the Nemesis was injured, weary, and while still strong, didn't have the maneuverability to dodge the bolt - something Thundercracker himself would have been hard pressed to do...yet it tried. The bolt didn't strike along spine as Thundercracker intended...no, it struck the Nemesis right between the shoulder blades.

The horror in Thundercracker's eyes matched Roberts, as in a split second, the Italian Captain went from shaken and half electricuted, to taking nearly the full brunt of the electrical attack, his body becoming a smoking charred corpse in it's harness - just as the same time the Nemesis realized it.

In that dreadful, horror filled moment - Thundercracker and Roberts would have given nearly anything to take the shot back. But they couldn't. They would have to live with what came next. The sound started with a keening, and quickly rose to such a level, such a heart rending, fear invoking, primal roar...that Thundercracker's wings stopped beating and lay outstreched for the briefest of moments, holding air.

"Climb...CLIMB DAMN YOU!" Robert's shouted, beating Thundercracker's neck to rouse him out of the stupor.

The Nemesis had manuvered himself FOR the bolt to strike his Captain. That was the only possible answer that made sense - and from the depths of a brief second of stupidity, the Xolotl heard his handler and did what he could. He beat his wings as hard as he ever could, and turned to fly away from the oncoming beast - away from the fight, away from the squadron, until he could rebuild charge, going up and away as fast as his great wings would take him.

"Get me Reynolds on the radio!" Roberts shouted to his own radio man, who with a quick nod signaled the frequency was open, "Frostfell this is Thundercracker, Nemesis is in pursuit. We'll keep it out of the squadron's hair until you signal us."

Roberts didn't wait for much of a response before throwing the mic back to the radio operator. They just had to avoid the Nemesis enough, keep above and away from it long enough to build up another charge, and then strike the beast again.

[Charon]

The roar of anguish, pain, and suffering, was a distant thunder in the background. Indeed, it is doubtful that Kunja had even heard the call at all as the dragon whipped around. Grabbing the errant wingblade he yanked it with a hard tug, pulling it free from his chest with something approaching disdain and took to the air in earnest. Spotting the other approaching dragon, he roared out. "Watch my other capture, or go help the others! This one is mine!" The lightweight flew on with a single purpose, capture. Either the German would surrender, or he would batter her from the sky and she would surrender. It did not make much difference to him.

Kunja pushed himself to close the distance, intent on simply latching on to the enemy dragon, holding on, and bringing her to the ground once more. He approached from the side where she still had her wingblade, making it much more difficult for her to retaliate with her remaining blade if she so chose to.

[rhoenix]

A cloud of dust obscured everything to the Typhon and Weyekin who were desperately flying to the aid of the Victorian Reaper, but only for an instant, as Kunja leaped into the air to leap up and onto the Speckled Bavarian that was flying towards him at a truly absurd rate of speed. Yet if the Bavarian was surprised, she gave no sign at all. Only the greenest of lightweights would expect their enemy to obediently stand on the ground and await decapitation, and subtle though he might have sought to be, Kunja could not entirely conceal his intention to jump up, or at the very least, to not jump left or right. The dust was a surprise, but the Bavarian was by then too close to abort even if she had chosen to, and she simply closed her eyes and hoped for the best with a final, extra burst of speed.

The collision between the two dragons was ringing.

The Bavarian had snapped her wing open at the last second, the better to slay Kunja if he happened to be fool enough to actually stay where he was. He did no such thing of course, but there simply was not adequate time for Kunja to jump up and come back down atop the Bavarian, not at the speeds the Bavarian was moving. As such, the outstretched wing caught Kunja in the chest like the blade of an axe, splitting his combat armor and slicing into his hide. Yet fast and strong as the Bavarian might have been, she had nothing close to the required force to cut a Victorian Reaper in half, and her wing crumpled even as the blades snapped loose, causing the Bavarian to spin halfway round and crash, headfirst, into Kunja's flank. The blades remained wedged in Kunja's upper ribcage as the Bavarian's wing came free, and before Kunja could so much as blink, the Bavarian bounced off him, flipped twice, and smashed into the ground like a collapsing piece of furniture, sliding to a stop a hundred yards away in a furrow of loose earth and destroyed wheat stalks.

To the Bavarian's credit, it righted itself almost immediately, leaping back to all four feet with an athleticism that Albatros himself might have admired. One wingblade missing, her captain badly shaken, and two enormous dragons bearing towards her, the Bavarian seemed to decide that discretion was the better part of valor, and leaped into the sky once again, flying away at ground level to the north, though where she was going was not presently obvious. What was obvious was that the terrible impact had to have shaken the small German Lightweight up, for she was no longer flying nearly as fast as she had before, and would be hard pressed now to evade the pursuit of any of the Allied dragons on hand, should they elect to engage in one.

Franklin's eyes narrowed as he saw the fight between lightweights unfold, and the German lightweight deciding to run in the face of reinforcements. Watching Kunja take to the air after it with a singular purpose made Franklin smile slightly, even as Captain Maximilian used the radio to hail the nearby Weyekin. "I don't think Franklin and I will be much use against that German lightweight - we're heading en route to the base, and see how much mischief we can cause."

Franklin growled slightly, though he banked smoothly toward the base, still increasing altitude as he did so. He was preparing to attack in the manner of Typhons, with or without a storm. Typhons were known as Storm Dragons, for many reasons - one of which was how they emulated thunderstorm air currents and the lightning bolts themselves when they hunted, and made war.

[LadyTevar]

As the Razorback extended its claws to snare Jebediah, lowering its wing in one final beat, he was struck in turn as Jeb's winghook slammed directly into the Razorback's shoulder and stuck fast. Instantly, the Razorback's momentum was aborted as his wing was violently wrenched backwards. The Razorback swung inward as his wing collapsed, but Jeb was a mountain dragon, easily the equal if not the better of any Razorback for maneuverability, and by the time the Razorback's blades and spikes were swinging towards him, he was already past, his hook gouging the Razorback down its flank and across its chest as he slingshot around the dragon and launched himself obliquely away from his wounded target

Jebediah used the momentum to swing towards where he last saw the other Razorback and the durn fool Winchester. Judith let out a laugh as the obviously shocked dragon tried to grab them, but missed by yards. Just as they planned, the Razorback was totally ignoring Haakon, and was about to get bludgeoned.

The laughter cut off short as the Nemesis screamed, and Jeb's wingbeat stuttered. They knew that sound, having heard it far too often. Jeb had cried out that way, when Judith's father died. More than one dragon Tangmere had fought made that cry, before being put down for their own good. Both dragon and captain looked skywards, towards the wisely fleeing Xolotl and the parachutes blossoming in the Nemesis' wake.

"Jebediah to Flight... Nemesis in Bloodlust. Repeat. Nemesis in Bloodlust. Capricorn, we need ya, NOW."

"Nothin' we kin do, Judith," Jebediah told her after Judith put out the warning to everyone, including those she thought were still with Rankin. He reoriented on the Winchester, now wrapped up with the Razorback and falling, and went into one of his peregrine-like stoops. Catching the two would not be a problem. Snagging the Razorback with his wingclaw without hurting himself or the Winchester, now that would be the tricky part. But Jebediah meant to try. Judith just hoped they didn't repeat the Xolotl's mistake.

[JimmyTheCannon]

As soon as Alacritas and the Razorback collided, Faustus dove, his captain pressing close to his neck to reduce the wind resistance as they plummeted after the pair. They were mid-fall when the bloodcurdling scream from the Nemesis split the air. The Bonetail shuddered, and Jimmy - sheet-white - yelled "Keep going!"

There was a school of strategy that said not to attack the enemy's weaknesses, but to attack their strength. Whether Jimmy and Faust subscribed to this belief, or simply realized that with Alacritas tangled up with the Italian, they needed to go for a bigger target than the (relatively) small head of the beast, the result was the same. As Faust neared the falling dragons, spinning to match the Razorback and keep it square in his sights, the hard clublike tail swung down at the place the bladed dragon probably least expected to be attacked - its back, to one side of the spine between two of the rows of spikes. With any luck - and the pair clearly had a mixed bag of that - the blow would interfere with the Razorback's wings, and if it did hit any of the spikes, the tough bone of the tail would take it better than his side had taken the wingblade.

[dragnl0rd]

The other Razorback was having a better time of things.

What had possessed a Winchester scout dragon to hurl itself at the Razorback and attempt something like this was unclear to anyone, least of all the Razorback, but for all Alacritas' efforts, he was attempting to roll and hurl through the air a dragon that outmassed him by two and a half to one, and this was not something destined to end well. He evaded the Razorback's slash, and managed to seize the tail, but when he twisted, in an attempt to throw the larger dragon overhead, the result did not bear out his expectations. The tail of a Razorback was made of strong stuff, and all Alacritas contrived to do with his maneuver was pull himself in towards the spined monster. The result was predictable. The two dragons collided along Alacritas' shoulder and right flank with the force of two automobiles colliding, driving a half dozen cruel spikes directly into the Winchester's hide.

If there was a silver lining to all this, the impact confused the Razorback about as much as it did the Winchester, and left it unable to counterattack effectively. Its rear claws scrabbled and tore at the smaller dragon, but the angle was such that it could find no purchase beyond slicing a few harness cords and scraping some scales. It bucked and twisted, but could find no leverage to pry the Winchester off of itself, as both dragons plunged downwards, neither one concentrating on remaining at altitude, both consumed with trying to find some way of accosting one another when the sound of death incarnate interrupted everything.

Alacritas yelled in pain as Marcus' plan went tits up in what ranked among the most painful ways possible. He wrenched his body mass away from the tail, off the spikes he'd inadvertently impaled himself on, while trying to keep his grip. This last was no small feat with the razorback kicking at him like some cross between a mad mule and a feral cat while he had new holes in his shoulder. Marcus looked down, trying to guage the time until impact with the ocean by how fast it rose to meet them.

"Sorry friend, I honestly thought that would go better!" Marcus unwrapped some of the extra straps from his right arm and reached for his submachine gun. The dragon responded with a snarl full of pain, and thankfully not resentment.

"Save the sorry for later, just tell me you have a new plan!"

At that point everything froze as what sounded like a scream of a beast only describable as 'Damned' ripped through the sky. Alacritas' talons pressed ahrder into the razorbacks tail out of fear.

The oncoming ocean startled Marcus back to reality and unwrapped his other arm so he could steady his aim at the razorbacks right wingsail. "When I give the word, do your damndest to get out from under this bastard. Ready?"

Alacritas glanced about... trying to look for an escape route that would take him out from under the razorback, and definitely keep him out of the attack path of the american dragons that were arriving at angles marcus could not see yet. His heart was beating up in his throat. "Ready!"

"Now!" Marcus unloaded the rest of his clip towards the razorback's wingsail as Alacritas heaved his wings and let go of the razorback's tail, twisting to get away from his dance partner, using the adrenaline to fuel his escape.

[Hawkwings]

Emily hit the water hard, but luckily after the giant wave had already swept past. She spotted a few crewmembers, both friendly and hostile, who had gotten a bit waterlogged from the enormous result of the impact. Off in the distance, she spotted the Royal Marine contingent already forming together and pointing and shouting about something, one of them pointing and waving a pistol around for emphasis.

A few hundred yards off, Luna was sprawled on the surface of the water, shaken and stunned, but still alive. The Nimbus she had crushed looked to be out of the fight, but there was still one above, watching. Emily spotted it just before they dove into the water, harpoons at the ready.

Come on Luna... You've got to wake up! Even in the water no midweight is going to take you!

She was just about to speak when suddenly, the soul-searing roar from above reached her ears.

Emily stopped cold for about five seconds, and almost sank down as she was so stunned. Her crew chief again grabbed her, and said shakily "Lass, It might not be such a terrible thing that we're here in the water right now... That hostile special's just gone into blood rage... Evil creatures those ones."

All Emily could think to do was to get back over to her dragon. She started swimming, slowed by the flotation device and all her gear, but gradually getting closer. A few of her crew spotted her and came over, forming what little guard they could in the open water. Elsewhere, the rest of her crew and the Marines were fighting Italians in the water, attempting to take some hostages and locate the captain of the Nimbus they just downed. It was their only hope if they didn't want to get dragged under the waves by the hostile aquatic still down there somewhere.

[General Havoc]

As Frostfell turned around, the Raiders began to think better of their chosen tactics.

Perhaps it was the prospect of a fresh, angry Wendigo confronting them that caused them to turn tail. Perhaps it was the keening cry of an enraged Nemesis at their backs that prompted them to alter the geometry of the situation. Perhaps they were simply spent, and wished to leave, or perhaps it was something else entirely. Whatever the reason, as Frostfell turned to confront the Tuscan Raiders, the Raiders themselves turned to leave.

They reformed their dual formation, flying side by side with all guns trained on the Wendigo at their backs, the Raiders began to pick up speed as they fell back, the dragons barking instructions to one another in Italian as they flew. They did not see fit to inform the rest of the Italian squadron what they were doing, having been drawn so far away from their fellows that the gyrations of the remaining dragons were mere spots on the horizon, some miles off. Both Raiders retreated Southeast, towards the coast of Africa, though where they thought they were going was unclear.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

The Razorback had seen better days even before Haakon landed on him. The Valdemarian's diving strike did not hit precisely where he had hoped, but when one outweighed one's enemy four to one, precise accuracy mattered somewhat less. The Razorback saw Haakon coming of course, how could he not, but for all the Razorback's mountain-fueled agility, Valdemarians were mountain dragons too, and Haakon had no trouble adjusting to what small maneuvers his target could perform before he hit.

It was like watching a sparrow get hit by a car. The Razorback was seized with both of Haakon's foreclaws and simply devastated, the claws tearing great furrows in its hide as Haakon ducked in to bite in mid-dive. Though he could not ensnare the lightweight's wings, and the spikes and blades of bone aboard the smaller dragon scored his own armor and even hide, such damages were minor compared to the ones Haakon inflicted on his hapless target. With a supreme act of desperation and will, the Razorback did manage to tear itself away from Haakon at long last, but to no real avail. Haakon dove past him, and the Razorback turned to flee, heading due south towards the Moroccan coast, plainly looking for nothing more than dry land to collide with.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Had Roberts known what was following him, he might have thought better of his boast that he would keep the Nemesis occupied. Not that it was inaccurate. But he might not have phrased it in that fashion.

The Nemesis chasing Thundercracker was a fel thing, a thing of terror and rage, and to "occupy" it was not a state one would ever brag of, not if one desired to see the sun rise and set the following day. At this point, that was in question as far as Thundercracker was concerned, for rage gave the Nemesis fresh wings, and it boiled into the air like a gas balloon, easily outclimbing the smaller Special Weapons dragon and pursuing him like the Nemesis it was named for, eyes wild and red with violent intent. Unladen now, its crew long-gone, its equipment blasted to pieces by the arced lightning of the Xolotl, the Nemesis' fangs dripped with poison, great gobs of which it hurled in the Xolotl's direction, each shot coming closer to the mark than the rest.

One thing was certain. Attempting to simply outrun this thing was unlikely to proceed to Thundercracker's satisfaction. Yet even as Thundercracker tried desperately to retreat, some hope appeared on the distant horizon in the form of a small, dust-yellow dragon, even now racing towards the scene of another raging, captainless monster. Capricorn was still too far away to engage, but if Thundercracker could both survive the next few minutes, and contrive to find a way to employ either his or Capricorn's special weapons (or both) to strike the raging beast, it might prove enough.

... maybe.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Kunja tore after the Bavarian like a bullet, Kaltur and Franklin in tow behind, but while the Bavarian had been slowed by her recent impact, the difference was marginal and Kunja gained ground only slowly. Over hills and rivers the dragons flew, the Bavarian keeping as close to the ground as she dared, perhaps in the hope that Kunja might either lose sight of her or make a mistake and crash into a stone wall at high speed. Neither of these things happened, but the dragon could hardly be faulted for trying.

Still, this could not be kept up indefinitely, it was apparent. The dragon seemed to be following the approximate track of a small river, though where she thought she was going was anyone's guess. Ahead though, the river descended into a cleft between two hills, wide enough to admit even heavyweights, but the only major feature in the undulating terrain within sight. At current speed, she could get past the hills before Kunja caught her, but not much beyond.

But before anyone could determine what she thought she was doing, the reason for her approach became immediately obvious.

All of a sudden, the tops of the two hills exploded in massive clouds of dust, as though a small volcanic eruption had occurred from each peak. But what emerged was not lava. Instead, two enormous dragons, at least 20 tons if not more, pale yellow striped with the dirt they had been hiding in, burst forth like flocks of startled birds. The enormous horn and head assemblies mounted on the dragons, tipped with chromed steel, betrayed their identities as clearly as brands. These were Swabian Lightning Bolts, German midweight racing dragons, re-purposed by the Luftwaffe for their incredible speed and powerful horns to use for ramming attacks.

If a pair of German Lightweights in southern Spain were a mystery, this was an absurdity. There was simply no reason conceivable to expect to see something like this in this place, and yet there it was. One of the Swabians aimed itself at Kunja, while the other set its sights on the more distant Franklin, each dragon accelerating as quickly as possible to ramming speed as it vectored in towards its chosen target.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Razorbacks were accustomed to getting their way, generally speaking. Plated over with spines, blades, and armored plates, larger by a tone or more than even standard combat lightweights, and agile thanks to their hardly construction and years spend navigating the impassible Appenine Range, Razorbacks were not the end of the world, but they were a close approximation to one in regards to Lightweights. Particularly when all of their opponents were Courierweights, Razorbacks tended to know no fear.

But then, even Appenine Razorbacks didn't often try to take three dragons on at once. And certainly not these three.

Everything went wrong at once. As the Razorback reared its wing back from the concentrated gunfire of the Winchester's captain, something quite literally clubbed it in the back, as though a giant had materialized from nothing and brought a warhammer down upon its flank. The blow, delivered in a strange, inverted dive, had not the power of the previous attempt, but it hardly required it, for the Razorback was expecting it approximately as much as he was expecting to be slashed by a Smoke Devil's winghook, and he crumpled around the blow, jackknifing in midair and losing his grasp on Alacritas, and pulling violently free of the squirming Winchester.

And speaking of a Smoke Devil's winghooks...

Jeb hit the Razorback before he could even begin to recover from his previous blow. The Razorback was twice Jeb's size, but that mattered not at all, for Jeb was in a scream-dive, and the Razorback might as well have been in Oz for all his present situational awareness. The hook caught the Razorback's bruised flank and caught, hard, whether on harness or hide or both, it scarcely mattered. Before the Razorback knew what was happening, Jeb was literally dragging him down towards the ocean below, all four limbs trailing like streamers behind a racing dragon, as the Razorback, by now completely out of sorts, desperately tried to retrieve some sort of control of the situation.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

The Italians in the water were hopelessly outnumbered, but in one respect, they had the advantage. Nimbuses, aquatic dragons from Venice and the Istrian Litorral, were trained to fight in the waves whenever possible. Many dragons, including almost all European Heavy and Midweights were not only helpless (or near enough) in the water, but actually unable to take off from the surface. The crews of Nimbuses, as a result, were themselves trained by the Italian Regio Marina in underwater combat. Their crews had SCUBA gear, harpoon guns, shark suits and oyster-knives, and all were trained to be the finest aquatic combatant the Italian Empire could cause them to be. Admittedly, this might not sound like much, given the overall state of Italy's military, but Nimbuses were one of the few breeds the Italian Air Force felt that they could count upon, and their crews tended to be among the best the Air Forces could deploy, at least when the Diavollos didn't interfere (which was often, admittedly, but still).

All this made for difficulty, and the combat between Royal Marine and Italian Air-Sea Carabineri was bitter, as men fought one another in the warm waters of the Blue Meditteranean. Even then, the British might have acquired the upper hand, for the crews of Regal Coppers were also picked men, and angered by the fate of their own beast. Yet as the second Nimbus dove into the water, another swarm of Italian Carabineri detatched and joined the pitched fighting, the two crews combined evening out the numbers of the larger British contingent, and the specialized equipment of the Italians began to tell the tale.

And as to the Nimbus itself, now unburdened by crew save for its captain, still ensconced on his dragon's neck, strapped down and with a SCUBA device to breathe from, the Nimbus turned on its outsized target, and spinning underwater like a dancer, laid into the Regal Copper with a will, slashing with all four claws in a series of graceful attacks, one blending seamlessly into the next, darting beneath and around and under the Copper again to strike over and over and over. Granted, Regal Coppers were built to take tremendous punishment, but this one was stunned beyond all comprehension, and now suddenly under attack by a beast to which it had no answer, its feeble counterstrokes slowed by water, injury, and raw concussion.

[rhoenix]

Kunja tore after the Bavarian like a bullet, Kaltur and Franklin in tow behind, but while the Bavarian had been slowed by her recent impact, the difference was marginal and Kunja gained ground only slowly. Over hills and rivers the dragons flew, the Bavarian keeping as close to the ground as she dared, perhaps in the hope that Kunja might either lose sight of her or make a mistake and crash into a stone wall at high speed. Neither of these things happened, but the dragon could hardly be faulted for trying.

Still, this could not be kept up indefinitely, it was apparent. The dragon seemed to be following the approximate track of a small river, though where she thought she was going was anyone's guess. Ahead though, the river descended into a cleft between two hills, wide enough to admit even heavyweights, but the only major feature in the undulating terrain within sight. At current speed, she could get past the hills before Kunja caught her, but not much beyond.

But before anyone could determine what she thought she was doing, the reason for her approach became immediately obvious.

All of a sudden, the tops of the two hills exploded in massive clouds of dust, as though a small volcanic eruption had occurred from each peak. But what emerged was not lava. Instead, two enormous dragons, at least 20 tons if not more, pale yellow striped with the dirt they had been hiding in, burst forth like flocks of startled birds. The enormous horn and head assemblies mounted on the dragons, tipped with chromed steel, betrayed their identities as clearly as brands. These were Swabian Lightning Bolts, German midweight racing dragons, re-purposed by the Luftwaffe for their incredible speed and powerful horns to use for ramming attacks.

If a pair of German Lightweights in southern Spain were a mystery, this was an absurdity. There was simply no reason conceivable to expect to see something like this in this place, and yet there it was. One of the Swabians aimed itself at Kunja, while the other set its sights on the more distant Franklin, each dragon accelerating as quickly as possible to ramming speed as it vectored in towards its chosen target.

The instant both Captain Maximilian had both noticed the incoming draconic battering ram, Captain Maximilian's eyes narrowed. "Bite the sky's throat, Franklin. Then I think he'll be a-sufferin' after making an ass of himself like that, don't you?" he said, grabbing the radio handset as he felt Franklin rapidly begin to gain altitude. "Captain Maximilian to Allied forces - German forces attempting surprise attack, suspect possible base nearby," he reported, before re-seating the radio.

With a growl and smirk of acknowledgement, Franklin had suddenly ascended upwards, his wings clawing the air currents for speed and altitude.

[LadyTevar]

As soon as his alar-hook caught, Jebediah knew he was in trouble. Whatever it was caught upon, the hook was bent backwards painfully, unable to be freed normally. Had the Razorback been more stable in the air, Jebediah would have painfully snout-planted into it's body. But now both dragons were diving towards the ocean, Jebediah unwillingly pulling the stunned Razorback down with him.

"Jeb! Wha' th' hell?"

He heard Judith, but there was no time to explain. He had to free himself.
(Flashback to his hatchling days, hanging from a tree by his wing until he was freed by Judith's dad.)
No one to help him this time. Jebediah was on his own. "Hang tight!" was all he had time to say as he started a desperate maneuver.

If he could push off the Razorback's body, kicking himself away as if taking off from the ground, Jebediah figured he'd have the power to break the wing-claw free. The risks were many -- the ground doesn't move when pushed off from, but the Razorback would. The claw could be stuck so deep it couldn't be freed, or it might break from the strain. The Razorback might come to his senses, and prevent Jebediah from breaking free. They could all wind up in the ocean. All these thoughts rushed through Jebediah's thoughts as he twisted and turned, trying to find purchase on the Razorback's body with his back legs.

Give himself purchase, and Jebediah was going to kick like a mule and pray God let him get free.

[JimmyTheCannon]

The Bonetail pulled up after the impact, wings beating to regain altitude just as Jeb flashed past, hooking the Razorback and dragging it down with him. Jimmy looked around wildly, finally spotting the injured Winchester and keying his radio. "Captain Wainwright! Can you make it to Gibraltar?" As he spoke, Faust began to circle slowly, staying near the courier while keeping his eyes on Jeb and the Razorback, alert for any opening the Smoke-Devil might give him. His captain was more concerned about Alacritas, however, wondering how the injured dragon would make it to safety.

[Cynical Cat]

"Leroux," said Nathan, "keep an eye on the Raiders. I don't want them sneaking back into the fight." The wide open blue sky, the annoyingly wide open blue sky that prevented Frostfell from ambushing anyone, cut both ways.

"Frostfell, the Nemesis." The Wendigo changed course and poured on the speed, heading toward the dreaded Sicilian beast.

"Keep above him and break off and run if he tries to close. Just get me into gun range and no closer. You can chew up the Nimbuses, but this one needs to die far, far away from us. " Nathan was a good shot and he wasn't planning anything fancy. Even a berserk Nemesis could only absorb so many 20mm shots and it had already been struck twice by lightning and carried a number of Nathan's shells in its body.

"Radio man, get Thundercracker on the line. Tell him help is coming and fly in our general direction is possible."

[Charon]

There are few things that can shake a Victorian out of it's target fixation. Often once a Victorian is set upon their foe, the end will only come in the defeat of the Victorian's target or the Victorian itself.

It turns out that two Midweights seemingly appearing out of thin air is enough of a shock to the system to get the attention of a fixated Victorian.

A trap. One meant for him or for the Spanish it was hard to say. But a trap none the less. It reminded the Heavy Lightweight of the tactics of another German and he looked in the sky for the tell-tale red Bavarian. But though the Red Baron may be the greatest of threats that may be here, the more immediate one was the Swabian. Kunja kept to his course, closing fast with the Swabian. Swabians were fast, probably the fastest dragons in the world. They were stronger than Kunja as well, by virtue of weight if nothing else, and had a full crew aboard them. All in all a horrible mismatch against Kunja.

Which is probably why the Australian was grinning as he closed. The dragon judged distances carefully, then, hopefully within the sweet zone between being far enough away that the Swabian could adjust appropriately, and close enough that a turn wouldn't matter, he zigged right as sharply as he could, turning to protect his captain from any gunfire coming their way and sped away from the Swabian at a right angle.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Haakon felt the warm and tender flesh of the razor back yield to his claws and teeth, and it was glorious. When it pulled away (leaving some of itself behind), he was tempted to chase after it from sheer territorial instinct to give chase to a fleeing foe, but Bjorn tapped on his neck and pointed down to the sea, reminding him of what he was securing his rear to do.

The Italians had taken to playing shark to the british bait ball down there, and that just would not do. The british were giving a good account for themselves, but as more and more of Italian marines (in this case, rather literally) swam to the attack, their chances of defending themselves and their captain grew slim.

He took care to keep track of where the Nimbus was, as he did not want to be dragged into the water by one such dragon leaping into the air and grabbing him, but he took to helping the british deal with the italian crew...

He did so by spearing them out of the water with his claws like a giant fish eagle, keeping to groups of them swimming together or alone who had not yet engaged so as not to create by-catch of his allies.

[General Havoc]

Though damn few dragons could out-climb a Swabian Lightning Bolt, Typhons were certainly among the elect. Franklin's reaction to the Swabian approaching him at high speeds was to simply ascend more quickly than even the famous Wurtemburg speed demons could match. Yet if this development disturbed the Swabian in question, he betrayed no sign of it whatsoever. Rather than try, and fail, to outclimb the Caribbean storm drake, the Swabian instead bore away, sweeping past the Typhon in a wide sweep, circling him in a long, broad turn as he climbed after Franklin, never approaching close enough to be dove upon, letting Franklin lead him upwards if he wanted to.

The other Swabian, however, had a bigger surprise to show.

Kunja was correct that the most pressing threat to him at present was the Lighting Bolt moving towards him. He was also correct that the weakness of Lightning Bolts was their lack of close-range maneuverability. What he had overlooked was simply that any Swabian worth its salt knew all this just as well as Kunja did.

With their famously terrible attention spans, their ludicrous, stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and their general tendency to look on warfare as an extended team sport, many aviators and dragons regarded Swabians as idiots. And maybe for some that was true, but to rate them as one might a Venomspitter or Phoenix was to make a serious error. One of the few things guaranteed to get a Swabian's attention for any length of time was a combat with an enemy dragon, and this particular Swabian knew her way around the block. Though he had tangled with Swabians before, seen them in action and gained their approximate measure, moving head-on towards this one, Kunja had no way of telling that the Swabian had been holding her speed back as she approached, moving at a clip that was still quite fast, but yet not the maximum she was capable of. Without knowing this particular dragon, there was no way for Kunja to know this. And so it was that when Kunja entered the range he judged to be perfectly positioned to evade the Swabian's strike without possibility of adjustment, the Swabian threw all his careful calculations straight out the window by the simple expedient of suddenly accelerating to her top speed.

The good news for Kunja, such as it was, was that despite this acceleration, the Swabian was not able to actually stab him with her horns. Ramming strikes required a particular head position, lest the Swabian break their own neck by colliding at high speeds with an unyielding object weighting many tons at an angle, and while a lightweight made those preparations less necessary, they were also harder to snag with a horn. The bad news, however, was that the Swabian instead went with her second option, and as Kunja tried desperately to turn out of the way, the Swabian, in passing, clobbered him in the side with her outstretched foreclaw, balled into a mailed fist.

Kunja was large for a lightweight, and tougher than most dragons, thanks to the density of the Victorian Reaper, but this blow was like being folded in half by a hydraulic ram. Kunja crumpled around the Swabian's fist and was unceremoniously dumped out of the air as though his wings had been amputated. He flopped to the ground like a boned fish, landing in a cloud of dust on his side, his diaphragm momentarily paralyzed due to someone attempting to drive a flatbed truck through it. Above him circled the Swabian, her burst of speed ended now, turning and descending towards the lightweight whose lungs she had just emptied by main force.

Even as this was happening, however, the Bavarian who had instigated all this madness had not stopped to view what results her escort had wrought upon those chasing her. Her reasons for not stopping were excellent. There remained an Allied dragon diving towards her, and this one no lightweight. Kaltur's identity as a Weyekin might or might not have been known to his target, but she clearly seemed interested in taking no chances, flying on in a futile attempt to shake this last pursuer.

But even as she did, from the far side of one of the hills, another dragon took to the air. Smaller than the Swabians, lightweight in size, it did so without fanfare or bombast, lifting off the ground and gradually building up speed as it moved towards Kaltur. It could not catch Kaltur before he attacked the Bavarian, nor even catch Kaltur before Kaltur had recovered from whatever form of attack he wanted to make. He could not catch Kaltur in time to have any material effect on this attack, but he lifted off anyway, and began to approach the American Special, confident perhaps that the red body paint adorning his hide, and the glinting blades on the leading edge of his wings, might serve to alter the mathematics of the situation somewhat.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Back over the sea, things were getting ugly.

Jeb was falling upside down headfirst towards the water, his wing hooked to a dragon twice his size and stuck. Or as the West Virginians called it, Saturday. Kicking against his target to free himself, he at length, on the third try, managed to tear the winghook free of whatever it had snagged upon, sending himself cartwheeling away from the battered, torn up Razorback. The Razorback was less affected, but had plainly had enough. Turning tail as soon as it could right itself, the Italian lightweight headed for the expanses of the Mediterranean, seeking nothing more than to get away from the mutant dragons that he had just engaged to his own detriment.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Things were not proceeding so smoothly in the water.

Contrary to appearances, Luna was not dead, nor even unconscious, though at this moment, she might have been forgiving for wishing that she was. Drifting back into awareness, she knew only that she was in the water, and hurt badly, even by the admittedly lofty standards of a Regal Copper. The only saving grace was that the Nimbus who had followed her into the water had apparently decided to seek other prey momentarily.

But if that was good news for Luna, it was quite the opposite for Haakon. Haakon was making snatch-and-grab runs at whatever Italians he could find, mostly stragglers from the first Nimbus scattered in a wider area thanks to their parachutes. Yet if he thought he could do such things with impunity however, he was sorely mistaken. His lookouts called the alert moments before Haakon himself saw the Nimbus accelerating towards him from underwater at a frightening rate of speed, intending, it appeared, to leap from the waves and smash right into the aggravating Norwegian.

[frigidmagi]

Kaltur saw the red paint and began to curse. He knew of Albatros, the Red Baron had been a fearful specter in the dragon fields and coverts of the allies in the last war. What the hell was the fucking Red Baron in a neutral country!?!

"Kaltur! That's" Theodore yelled.

"I KNOW! Focus on the target then we deal with the old death dealer." Kaltur instructed. He bent himself to picking up speed as he dived at his original target.

He brought up his legs close to his body angling himself to slam down on the Bavarian with his entire weight. If he did it right, he would bounce up off the target, it would slam down into the ground hard and he could use the momentum to spin and face Albatros. He definitely didn't want the old killer behind him with a speed and height advantage.

[LadyTevar]

The final tug sent Jebediah spinning away from the Italian lightweight, and Jeb took only a second to right himself and find his dance partner. The Smoke Devil couldn't have been happier to see the Razorback turn tail and take off running. "Judith? Y'all right?"

"I'm fine, Jeb.. Did yer claw get stuck or som'thin?"

"Som'thin' like that," Jeb admitted, looking around the sky to see what was going on. "Th' Raiders are runnin', jus' lik' the Razorbacks. Haakon's protectin' th' Regal, so tha' jis' leaves th' Nem'sis ragin'."

"Cap's closin' in on th' Nem'sis, an' so's Frostfell," Judith said. "Bu' I ain't heard a thin' from Kunja since he said he found a German."

"Dang fool's prolly too busy fightin' ta think o' callin' fer help." Jebediah beat skyward, regaining the height he'd lost so he could rejoin Faustus and the Winchester. "Call Frostfell, update 'em, n ask fer orders, Ah guess."

"Jebediah ta Frostfell, enemy lightweights retreating. Haakon aiding Regal Copper. Kunja not answering radio. Requestin' orders."