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A Visitation2,670 words
A Dog Fight (part 1)2,177 words

A Dog Fight (part 1)

Flashback, the Frozen North…

“Yo Messer! You see in anything from there?” Spitfire asked through the communication crystal that she and Mesha had been provided for the mission, headed directly to where the capital of the Crystal Empire used to stand, an empty wasteland known as ‘The Northern Wasteland.’

The skirmishes around these areas had grown to become bigger and much more violent in nature, and Equestria, being the ‘righteous’ nation that it was, intervened as an intermediary for whoever the two sides may be involved, and they sent two aces to inspect the damage that had recently occurred in those parts of the wastelands, there is always the chance of malice. But, even after all of this is considered, Equestria, like any nation in any world, would always have preferences, and this simple ‘scouting’ mission is no different, there is usually a deeper reason.

Waiting for a response, Spitfire checked her equipment and the surroundings that she could see from her position, 6 crystals that allow her to discharge restored bolts of magic, 3 on each side of her waist which would usually be covered by her wings but were exposed while she was at flight, Mesha had something similar, amongst the minuscule details that separated their arsenal from the other, they both were near one and the same. The usual snow-white ground was covered in large pools of blood, whose blood was a mystery to her at the moment since she flew too high up to make out any recognizable creature, but before she could further investigate that train of thought, she got a response.

“Negative,” her crystal emitted in the voice of Mesha, “In Celestia’s name, you seein' the amount of blood down there, Spitfire? That must be like… two divisions worth of blood going by the redness from where I am, and it seems to be recent at that.”

“I'd be lying if I said this didn’t pique my interest, now Mesha, got any visuals back there?” Spitfire asked as she had a plan to answer to her curiosity, one that Mesha would definitely agree with, even if it was irresponsible, “won’t matter what you say now! We’re doing a dive, FOLLOW ME!” She screamed as she descended into a sharp dive.

“W-wait, what? Spitfire don- Oh for Celestia’s sake.” Mesha said through her crystal, obviously annoyed at what Spitfire had done and her apparent brashness, but she won’t deny, she had to join in with her on this one, curiosity may have killed the cat, but it lead to somewhere interesting, and soon after, she also joined Spitfire in a dive to the snowy ground, although a bit behind her by a couple of hundred meters.

The dive was so sharp one, in fact, that the very same form of the dive would actually be used several times for the future, most notably when the second Sonic Rainboom, but unexpectedly, when both mares started to level out their dive, Mesha was the first to respond.

“Yo! Spitfire, wait up, we still have a mission plan to follow. Command will probably come back to us in a short while, and so be prepared.”

And before Spitfire could respond, the communication crystal of both mares went off, the voice of their superior, “Messer 109, Messer 109, do you copy?”

“This is Messer 109, I Hear ya loud and clear.”

A second one was asked, this time, directed at Spitfire, “Little Spitfire, Little Spitfire, do you copy?”

For a very small moment, Spitfire growled at that, she didn’t like the fact that that specific nickname, that she earned out of a little crash, would be made into her calling card, but she responded nonetheless, “Little Spitfire here, you’re loud and clear.” She said.

“Good, good,” the voice of their crystal said, “ be advised, presumed hostiles en route, recent reports have this as speculated, and reinforcements underway, return to base once the scouting mission is finished.”

Both mares responded with a, “Copy that.” And continued their now slow descent to overview the blood-stained snow.

A sight and a grumble from Spitfire gave Mesha a light-hearted chuckle, which Spitfire quickly responded towards, “It’s not fair,” she said.

“What’s not fair?” Mesha asked as she flew beside her friend, “Last time I checked, you only really got yourself to hold accountable for this.”

“It’s not that, it’s just that... I dunno, maybe I'm overthinking the code names, but it’s still not fair how you got a much more casual and better codename while I got to deal with my other nickname.”

“Hey, hey, ay,” Mesha said as she decided to try and comfort her friend, “Tell you what, after this mission, I’ll get you a drink, the finest I could get ya, so don’t put that long face, we still got to finish this.”

“Fine, fine,” Spitfire reluctantly replied.

As they held their altitude to inspect the wide and blooded battlefield, the two mares chatted while they did so, but their chat was always interrupted by a unique site that one or the other might see out of the corner of their eye.

A small group of Griffins, either wounded or dead, was soon after spotted, but as they got closer, a familiar tingling would be felt by both mare, a trait that would be shared unanimously by nearly any and all aces. And as Mesha looked around, a sense of dread started to build up as they grew ever so closer to the downed Griffins.

Coming in for a short landing, on the barest of moments, Mesha spotted something from the corner of her eye, and on instinct, it didn’t matter to her what it was, in the very next moment that could mean a life being saved or lost.

“SPITFIRE! GET OUT!” She shouted as she dashed and bumped directly towards Spitfire to give her a ‘helping’ push.

And on that very moment, the downed Griffins began to move and started to try and catch up to their prey, playing dead seemed to work for them, and chased them from their position, a dogfight was about to ensue.

And as the two mares tried to climb to a higher altitude, but something stopped their climb, a mental kick, a shadow that was made clear thanks to the clouds had made itself apparent, another Griffon was spotted, and in a short time frame, their situation changed from manageable to probably desperation.

And so, a defining silence was shared, as the two mares held their altitude, it was, defining, to say the least, but this silence would be broken once the first move has been made.

And just as fast as they had stopped to hold their altitude, both mares immediately take a sharp nosedive, one that, once they looked back, garnered the hoped results, their perceived enemies following their dive and trying to catch up. But that wasn’t a problem, both mares could easily outrun most of them in a dive from their altitude, but the Griffon that they spotted on a higher altitude started his own dive, and he drew ever so closer by the second, faster than his peers.

“THIS IS MESSER 109, I REPEAT, THIS IS MESSER 109, WE ARE BEING ATTACKED BY HOSTILE FORCES, REQUEST PERMISSION TO ENGAGE!?” Mesha shouted through her communication crystal, her frantic voice being heard by Spitfire, who was only now realizing how bad the situation might actually be.

Then, a response from the crystal itself came around, “Negative, return to base, IMMEDIATELY, I repeat, return immediately.”

And with that, Mesha held her dive, she planned for herself and Spitfire to make it down to a lower altitude where the cold weather could take its toll on their pursuers, and allow for them both to outrun and pace them into safety, but the moment she looked to her side, she saw Spitfire, eagerness plastered all over her face, yet, before she could tell her to hold said dive, Spitfire, through the communication crystal, said something,

“Mesha, permission to engage?” She said through her communication crystal, in her head being sure that Mesha would allow a counterattack against their attackers, if not in retaliation, then just to buy themselves more time and distance to escape.

“Negative,” Mesha said, “AND DON’T EVEN THINK, I repeat, don’t THINK ABOUT IT SPITFIRE! Don’t you dare do it-” but before she could finish, from Spitfire’s behind, she saw her banking to their left, and while she continued her dive, Spitfire would really engage her enemy, will she survive the encounter? Mesha didn’t know, but she wouldn’t take any chances, as a personal friend, it felt like a duty to her to look out for both friends and squadmates, and so, she planned to follow through with her, although she planned on taking a much more… unorthodox approach, at least compared to what others would do.

And just like that, Spitfire was climbing altitude to meet her foe in battle. Mesha was her supervisor in a sense, and she wouldn’t answer to HQ unless Mesha told her so, but she made the assumption that on this occasion, her attack would be a reasoned retaliation, and thus, she also argued in her head that she was committing insubordination towards Mesha and not HQ, however that may work. So she still continued to climb at the moment, her blood pumping with excitement in anticipation for a fight, one she couldn’t get even if she earned it, today was the day she that she could experience the full extent of her adrenaline.

And as the clouds started to clear up, and Spitfire’s field of vision grew, her eyes immediately darted to search for her targets. And in no time at all, she found her first target. A griffon who was ahead of the pack, all alone, and she made sure, checking the surrounding area, and when all was done, she had her sights on her first target in a long time. Although the academic never approved of killing anyone, exceptions have been made, and Mesha was one of the few Pegasus who was willing to kill, and it was never Spitfire’s intention to mimic her to that degree, just… incapacitating her opponent would be enough for her.

And around 300 meters of distance separated the two beings of the sky, Spitfire and this lone griffon, and drawing ever so closer, she had to choose her moment carefully, which wasn’t that hard for her. And in the next moment no less, she opened fire, her side-mounted crystals releasing beams of magic that headed directly towards the griffon, the griffon for his part, seemed to have reached a bit late and released his own barrage of arrows with the use of a crossbow, the number of arrows fired in one volley from it was unexpected, at least for Spitfire.

Immediately and by instinct, Spitfire banked too hard to her right to avoid the oncoming barrage, and thankfully, she dodged all of the arrows that were sent her way. The same could, unfortunately, not be said for the griffon, who was hit thrice by Spitfire’s magical barrage and was not able to dodge it in time, hitting his left-wing (Spitfires right side) and center mass, incapacitating him temporarily and sending him into a spin he could not recover because of his incapacitated wing (the experience being similar to magically feeling cramped and the joints locking up as a result of that or something).

The griffon fell all the way to the ground, although from the altitude from where he started to fall, Spitfire figured he would just have several broken bones at worst, griffons were tough bastards from her experience, and she resumed her search for her next pray. Although, from the corner of her eye, she saw, at least, 4 other griffons dive down to where she had assumed the griffon she took out had fallen, now, she figured she probably struck their pack leader or someone of equal worth if they were willing to break just to see and asses that griffon’s situation.

Her climb was soon interrupted when she saw a shadow overhead, and once she looked up, there were only clouds upon the seemingly endless void of clouds, despite the weather being mostly cold when dropping altitude, there was a certain height where the freezing cold isn’t as bad to deal with, which surprisingly, wasn’t that high up, but never the less, it was always a difficult task to navigate in what could have been mistaken as an endless void.

The feeling of being watched had suddenly taken hold of Spitfire, and slowly, she made very small adjustments to her flight path, but cautiously kept a keen eye on her surroundings. Yet with all of this, she still couldn’t shake the feeling, and she was sure she shouldn’t just ignore it either, so, she patiently waited, doing her moves and playing this… game, as it seemed to appear, a game of cat and mouse, and it wasn’t hard to figure out in which position she was in.

Author's Note:

Hey, decided to split this chapter, originally this chapter was supposed to be one big long chapter of a flashback that continued the previous story, but then I decided to still go with splitting it, the first part shedding light on how Spitfire used to be a bit 'brash' and the second part,
(spoiler warning)
(this is how I planned it so far) how Mesha had to save Spitfire from a pickle and that fight cost Mesha her career as an Ace, ending it while skyrocketing Sptifire's fame, after that... we'll see.

Edit 1: Just a chapter change in name, that's all, nothing interesting.

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