//------------------------------// // Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Wyvern nonsense. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Jacky- It wasn’t long after we flew high enough that Jade tilted forward and started diving straight for the rearmost of the three wyverns. She had a decent grip on my shoulders and I didn’t care if it was tight or if she dug her talons into my tightly strapped on shoulder pads, just so long as she didn’t drop me at this height. I wonder what it felt like to be a griffon, must be incredible for Jade to be able to get the chance to fly like this. The three wyverns had a black crests and dark blue almost black scales. All with two large wings with two claws sticking out at the joint, their legs had four sharp scythe like blades that almost took the shape of a hawks feet and the head that we were approaching looked like that of a dragons. The third wyvern was still pretty big for the smallest, the two larger wyverns were further ahead. Jade brought us down to ram into the side of the rearmost wyverns head, knocking it to the side. The head came back swiftly and snapped at my feet, I scrunched up away from it and panicked fumbling for my bow. It snapped at us a second time, only for Jade to flap her wings hard and pull us up and over its head in a barrel roll and until we ended up on the other side of it. She flapped again narrowly avoiding the third snap of its jaw, but then it did something curious… it ignored us and flew to catch up with the other two wyverns. “I guess it’s not hungry for Grilled Griffon or Broiled Blackcap.” Oh gee whiz Jade, do you think? “Were you going to tempt it to eat me Captain?” Sometimes I wondered about Jade, I just had to ask. “No, of course not, I wouldn’t do that to you Jacky! Maybe almost to a mortal enemy, but not you or anyone else I care about.” She looked at the three wyverns ahead of us and narrowed her eyes, her wings stayed spread wide open as we glided down the streets of manehattan at ludicrous speeds behind them. “If they’re not hungry, then what are they after?” “Maybe that pegasus?” I pointed with my left hand as I gripped the bow in my right and prepared to help Jade by providing my particular brand of support, long range and ‘mostly’ accurate. It looked to be a female pegasus, blue fur, brown hair and currently equipped with saddlebags, she dove into an alleyway. While one of the wyvern stayed at one end, the other two went above and for the other side of it. They had her cornered for a moment, we were about to catch up when we were interrupted. “Hey, what are you doing with that Ornithian during this state of emergency?” Oh look Spitfire. I’ve never been formerly introduced to her, but I did see her before a certain unicycle related incident made me take a few days in the hospital. “We’re chasing the cause of the wyverns being in the city my dear friend Spitty!” Why did Jade have to sound so cheerful about seeing Spitfire and why did the mare look a little shocked. While we were distracted the flying pony made a break for it and narrowly avoided the snapping jaws of the dragon headed monsters that started chasing her again. Jade took notice of the action and turned us twice so that we were on the same street as the wyverns and the evading pegasus. “You… you’re a griffon now?! Oh of course you are!” Spitfire sounded both upset and aggravated, then again Jade tends to have that effect on some people. “Also we’re not friends you annoying git! What’s the cause of this fracas anyway?” “For the next fifty or so minutes, yes, I’m a griffon Sprite Flier… as you probably noticed I’m not exactly a great flyer.” Really, you seemed to be doing pretty well to me Jade. “Speaking of, Jacky spot the nearest thermal so I can get some height!” Yeah, we were getting a bit too low to be comfortable. “Aim for the carrot dog stand Jade, looks like it has a grill and three broilers!” I turned to Spitfire who was easily keeping up with Jade as she steered us over the stand. We caught a small pocket of warm air from the grill and broilers to shoot upwards. “A pony is causing all this. Don’t know why the wyverns want her so badly, but once we’ve captured her, we can lead them to an ambush point.” “How are you going to catch her?” Spitfire asked while rubbing her head with her hooves as if she had a really bad headache. “You offering to help? My friend Jacky here will shoot her wing out, you need to get ahead of the pegasus and grab her when Jacky gets in a shot.” There was a loud sigh after Jade made her offer, Spitfire shook her head and finally she nodded. “We can lead you back to the ambush point my friends are setting up for the wyverns once you’ve grabbed the pony.” “This was supposed to be my day off, but I’ll help as I’m a Wonder Bolt!” With that she shot off in a different direction. “Come on let’s pick up some speed, I trust Spitfire to not let someone die if she can help it!” Jade started pushing her wings as hard as she could to get higher. “How close do we need before you can get a shot?” “We’re close enough, but getting us closer to that pegasus could only help.” I pulled something out of my tail quiver and put it to my bow, I took aim and tried to steady it while not thinking about how fast the street is moving beneath my dangling feet. “You could hold me a little steadier too, while you’re at it! Why aren’t you as good with these wings as you are with the wings of sunlight?” “Those are automatic, these are manually operated and it’s very tiring Jacky!” Okay, Jade was trying, but did she really have to be so jittery in the air? I could now see where she wasn’t doing so well at flying as we picked up speed and skimmed over the marketplace the mare was flying through. She was trying to lose the wyverns by flying through several produce stands. “My cabbages!” Oh that guy again, huh. The fleeing mare turned up sharply and the wyverns followed. One of the wyverns surged forward and was about to take a bite out of the pegasus when I changed my aim and let loose the object I held to my bow, a boxing glove on a stick. With a loud thwack noise, the boxing glove slammed into the lead wyvern’s left wing joint and it flipped right into the second wyvern which were about to… uh oh! I felt the impact of one of the two tumbling wyverns wings happen above me instead of going into me. I felt weightless for a second and I heard someone screaming. “Jacky!” Was that Jade? I turned my head as I fell, to my horror Jade no longer had her talons on my shoulders. I could even see Jade and the two wyverns trying to reorient themselves before they hit the street, Jade looked particularly panicked for me and not for herself. I landed on something solid a second later, but it didn’t falter and it was still airborne even after I landed on it… I was sitting on the third wyvern. I wrapped my legs tightly around its neck earning its attention and it started to twist, turn and flail trying to throw me off of its back. This was not a very good position to be in. Bad luck, don’t hurt me now! One would think that making a shot from a wyvern, that was far worse than a raging bull and was trying it’s darnedest to shake me off of it, would be impossible. I was going to do the improbable and make the disabling shot from the back of the wyvern as it twirled and curved trying to keep up with the frightened pegasus. I could worry about Jade or how I’m getting off of this wyvern in a second, I just had to concentrate. Breathe, choose my ammo and put it to the bow, take aim, focus on what to hit. I did not want this pony's death on my conscience, even if I was a pirate born and should care less about the pony who caused this mess in the first place. I had to choose the right moment to release my shot. My ride surged forward and was about to bite into the pegasus. I adjusted my aim minutely, prayed and fired. The two pound brick hit the mare in the right wing and made a sickening noise when it hit, then it bounced into the back of her skull making her immediately go limp to fall out of the way of the jaws of the wyvern. I couldn’t believe that worked. The wyvern turned around sharply, my foot talons finally lost their grip on it and I was sent flailing into the air. I saw Spitfire pass by in a blur and caught the pegasus mare, if she caught the mare… then who was going to catch me?! I fell for five seconds letting out a scream, until I felt two powerful arms shoot up under my armpits and hoisted me back into the air just before I hit the ground. “Thanks Jade.” I sighed with relief. “Thanks, but I’m not Jade though. She’s kind of busy at the moment.” That bland sounding tone was very familiar, Gene caught me!? Oh goddesses, this is embarrassing. “I told Spitfire where to go, the ambush is ready. Now that we’ve got the culprit that brought the wyverns into the city, all that’s left is to deal with the wyverns themselves.” I looked forward to see what Gene meant and Jade was frantically harrying the two wyverns trying to keep them off of Spitfire as she swiftly flew back towards the train station. The third wyvern caught up to Jade and nearly got its teeth on one of her wings, then a crescent blast of light struck it forcing its head downwards missing Jade by a few inches. I suddenly looked down at the bow in my talons. “Nice shot, a Valkyrie couldn’t have done that better at this distance.” Did Gene just imply that I did that without thinking about it? Wow, at this range that should have missed. “Don’t wiggle, I’m going to try and catch up with them.” Gene sped up and he was much faster than Jade was in the air while carrying me, though he was exerting himself to do so. We eventually caught up with Jade who slowly matched speeds with us. “Thanks for the save Jacky!” Jade chirped out of her beak as we continued to follow the three wyverns on Spitfire’s tail. “You dropped me!” I shouted angrily at her. “Sorry, but excuse me if I take two wyverns to the face and body again! Now if only Velvet would learn how to fly, this could have gone so much smoother.” It was about this moment that Jade looked to be limping as she flew, it was a very odd thing to see. “I’m so glad that these injuries won’t transfer when I turn back into myself. Come on let’s keep them off of Spitfire, until she can hit the ambush point.” Scrutinizing her form, I could see a large stretch of her back had one long claw mark in it. That had to hurt a lot, she would have to live with that injury for the next twenty or more minutes until the transformation wore off. “You’re hurt.” Of course she’s hurt Gene, my sisters been teasing danger again! “Yeah, but Spitfire needs us to keep those wyverns off of her!” Jade wasn’t wrong, the wyverns were almost on Spitfire who looked to be pushing for a new airspeed record. “Besides, if this was as bad as it looks then Dr. Bones can patch me up just long enough for me to get back in good health.” There was a reason why I bothered to carry solid ammunition when I can fire shots of light and darkness. It is because light and dark shots are raw energy and I needed something more solid. I pulled out a golf ball and took aim. Golf balls were very aerodynamic and when fired from my bow they always had a peculiar habit of always creating rainbow trails for some odd reason. Not important, but very a fun to see effect. Once we closed in I released the ball and it created a rainbow trail leading into the largest wyvern’s eye. It let loose a deafening angry roar of pain as it snapped its teeth at thin air since Spitfire managed to get away again. Jade was gripping onto the second largest of the wyverns and was covering its eyes with her wings, she looked over her left shoulder and smiled. “Ambush time, get clear!” With that Jade rolled off of the wyverns face, Gene pulled up and away from the three wyverns as they descended towards where Spitfire was waiting on the ground. The smallest wyvern was closest since we’ve been bothering the larger two. Its legs were suddenly caught by a lasso and it was pulled forcefully to the ground where it was knocked unconscious when it’s head, on its serpentine neck, slammed straight into the ground. Arizona had to be scarily strong to have done that. The second biggest soon found its being peppered with ice shards from above forcing it to land and then it was hit with a fog that made it collapse and frost over slightly. Velvet’s work, also very scary. The largest wyvern was about to hit Spitfire, when Maries landed on the wyvern forcefully grounding it, this had stopped the wyverns forward momentum. After Marie bit the wyvern, they quickly jumped off to the side and ran for it. A brilliant bolt of lightning lit up the entire square blinding me and anyone who happened to be nearby. Once my vision cleared up, I saw the largest wyvern was on the ground and twitching with small arcs of lightning bouncing all around its body. It was functionally paralyzed, the other two wyverns were also in a similar state. That would be the power of our sister Fizzle, she managed to incapacitate the largest one with the brunt of that bolt and still hit the other two to make sure they were down. I sighed with relief and nearly fell over as soon as my feet touched the ground, but Gene helped me stay standing. He even smiled up at me as he helped me get my balance, I think the adrenaline was finally wearing out of my system. “We… we did it! At least no one got too seriously hurt.” I spoke too soon, because when Jade landed next to us she collapsed to the ground due to the massive blood loss from her back wound. Once the transformations time was up and Dr. Bones was done complaining about dumb cats, Jade was soon back up if a bit pale. While injuries didn’t transfer, the blood loss certainly had.