Chapter 28
GMT: 14:38:15
EST: 10:38:15
Ragnar: +01:38:15
Taranis noticed the first symptom of the problem as a slight delay in his reaction times. At first, he chalked it up to minor side effects of blood loss and deep tissue trauma.
Then his vision began to swim.
He winced as a blow from Klarien's right shoulder sent him spinning into, then through, a section of wall. The force of the impact jarred the older Dragon's mind, and he ruefully put the pieces of the puzzle together.
The pair had been fighting within the confines of the Fort's central structure for the last two minutes. Taranis realized that he had been breathing in the residue from Klarien's initial attack on the building, as well as any further fumes that had been released over the course of the duel.
Some creatures, like Pegasi and Gryphons, could have briefly pushed past the gas directly thanks to their unique poison resistant lungs and enormous capacity for holding a breath. Others, like Earth Ponies or Humans, would have dropped within seconds without a rebreather. Klarien was completely immune as a result of his specific biology.
Taranis himself was also immune to any permanent effects of the chemical, let alone its normally fatal properties, thanks to his bulk and the power of his internal biological defenses.
But enough of the noxious green particles had built up in his system to put a definite strain on his sensing faculties.
The danger had simply gone unnoticed at first, because the dosage required to make a Dragon groggy was equitable to the dosage needed to kill a thousand Humans, a thousand times over.
Taranis tensed as another flurry of blows descended. He knew he could withstand the assault, at least temporarily. His desire to flush the toxins from his body far outweighed any petty desire to strike back, and thereby waste valuable seconds.
Instead, the cobalt Dragon put all his weight, and muscle, into a diagonal charge. He whipped past Klarien, and cannoned directly into a bank of windows, bursting forth into the morning air with a ground-shaking roar.
As he beat a slow, ominous tattoo with his wings, he inhaled deeply through his nostrils, exhaling through the gaping maw of his snout.
As his body rose into the space between the nearest skyscrapers, his head began to clear with an exhilarating rush. Manhattan air was not exactly fresh. It smelt strongly of warm duracrete, cleaning solvents, lubricants, and coolant. But it was more or less clean.
The reprieve was short lived.
Klarien's lesser stature gave him one distinct combat advantage by way of agility. With a triumphant snarl, he came billowing up from the ruined roof of the compound, beating his wings swiftly to take maximum advantage of his lower tonnage.
Taranis extended his front claws in preparation for a collision, but the green Dragon rolled to the side at the last moment, pivoting up and over his opponent in a graceful arc.
Klarien took full advantage of his momentary gains. Before Taranis could muster a defense, the younger Dragon latched onto the space between his wings firmly, and bit down hard on the base of his neck.
The pain momentarily blinded Taranis. It felt as if every single nerve ending in his head had been set on fire. The scale plating protecting his brain stem began to squeal in protest under the immense pressure.
And yet, in spite of the pain, in spite of the overwhelming din of his instincts, Taranis still retained one advantage. Years of military experience. Men and women had once lived and died by his ability to make split second choices in the clutch.
For all the changes Conversion had brought, it had done nothing whatsoever to damp the long term impact of those trials by fire, and sand, and water, and blood.
The plan, like most good strategies, was elegant in its simplicity. Raw physics at work.
Taranis twisted his head around as far as he dared, and offered Klarien a smug, toothy grin. In the precious moments the green reptile wasted trying to comprehend the expression, Taranis made his move.
The elder Dragon simply folded his wings shut with a snap.
Gravity took hold swiftly, and mercilessly. At first, Klarien was so baffled by the sudden change in the situation, that he loosened his grip slightly. That was all Taranis needed.
With a throaty chuckle, the cobalt Dragon threw his entire weight to the left. The world spun gradually one hundred and eighty degrees as the wind whipped past his ears, and floor after floor of the surrounding buildings hurtled past.
By the time Klarien realized what Taranis intended, it was far too late to do anything about it. His claws were still deeply embedded in his enemy's shoulders, locking him inextricably in place. Though he beat his wings frantically, they could do absolutely nothing to counteract the colossal momentum the pair had accrued.
For all intents and purposes, it would have been easier to arrest a battleship with a taught string.
The pair arrived at ground level with an impact more or less equivalent to a two thousand pound kinetic bomb. The sound was deafening for anyone within five blocks of Fort Hamilton. A low echoing rumble could be heard as far away as the other side of Manhattan.
Anyone, and anything, standing within eighty feet of the center of the courtyard was instantly shredded to matchsticks.
Duracrete dust, chunks of metal supports, artificial turf, glass shards, broken green scales, and paint flecks mushroomed outwards in a massive bloom of debris and smoke.
Klarien's body absorbed the majority of the energy, ablating nearly three millimeters of his scales in several places, and severely bruising most of the muscles in his back and wings. Only the raw tensile strength of Draconic bone and scale saved him from a lethal break in his spine.
Several pieces of debris dug their way between the protective façade of his scale plates, and into the first few inches of the tough hide underneath. Here and there, trickles of emerald blood flowed freely.
Taranis did not escape unscathed either. Klarien's claws compacted deeply into his inner layers of skin, severing two tendons and nicking a major blood vessel. Mercifully, however, the secondary shocks jarred his opponent loose at last.
Taranis tucked his wings for protection, and allowed himself to roll, bleeding off the remainder of his excess momentum with a no-holds-barred tumble across the parade ground. The out of control spin finally ended via an abrupt encounter with the Fort's main vehicle entry doors.
The meeting produced a melodic clang, and a Dragon-shaped indentation in the titanium plates.
At long last, there was relative stillness.
The sounds of distant approaching sirens, panicked screams, and morning traffic, began to filter in over the wall of the compound. For several seconds, nothing moved save for settling dust and debris.
Taranis was the first to regain motor control. Klarien's first clue to this effect was the enormous, ominous shadow that fell across his vision, as he squinted up through the pain and shock.
He barely had time to comprehend the enormous metal structural brace that Taranis had firmly grasped in both claws, before the steel beam abruptly became a permanent part of his chest cavity.
The shock of the puncture was so violent, that at first Klarien couldn't even scream. He just stared dumbly at the fifteen meter piece of metal which had passed all the way through his chest, out one shoulder, and into his left wing.
The indescribable pain to his internals, the sheer horror of the sight itself, and the incalculable strength Taranis had just exhibited, refused to process in any meaningful way.
Finally, his nerve endings and his brain tuned to the same wavelength, and a piercing roar of agony escaped his muzzle.
As the protracted sound crescendoed, Taranis leaned in close. Heightened by the effects of shock, adrenaline, and torturous pain, Klarien's senses picked up on every tiny fraction of the encounter. The tone of Taranis' voice, the dust and nicks in his scales, and the hot, sickeningly electrified waft of his breath, all hit home with a unique, and stunning clarity.
"I warned you how this would go."
As he spoke, Taranis threw his weight onto the metal beam, driving it into the ground several feet, pinning Klarien like a bug in a display case.
"I'm a soldier. We live, love, and die, by honor. When I became this? None of that went away."
The cobalt Dragon shook his head slowly, "You and your band of willful fools miss the point. You intentionally blind yourselves because you can't face facts. We've been given a chance; A chance for the best parts of what we are to live to live on in a way that betters everyone. We couldn't go on as we were forever. Neither side could."
Klarien spat, his saliva mixed with viscous blobs of blood, and powdery chunks of his toxin.
"Humanus pro vita!"
Taranis stepped back, and nodded slowly. His jaws opened wide.
The bolt began as a series of small electrical arcs, snapping back and forth between his teeth. Slowly, the energy grew into a voluminous cascade. Million volt strands of energy raced back and forth inside his muzzle.
After a moment, arcs began to fly off the nearest severed electrical lines, and damaged junction boxes. The bolts raced to the edges of Taranis' wings, across his back, over his eyes, and down into his mouth, joining the rapidly expanding cascade of blindingly bright electrical death waiting there.
The energy expanded across his entire body, sizzling back and forth across the gaps in his scales, and through the membranes in his wings. His entire body glowed a bright blue-white, brighter than the light of the occluded sun.
Finally, the mammoth quantity of electricity could no longer be contained.
The discharge came as a single, massive, spear-like bolt. The crack of its passing shattered every window within twenty blocks. The backwash shut down the power grid for all of lower Manhattan, as dozens of safety cut-off fuses simply immolated in their casings.
The entire sum total of the energy Taranis could muster from within his own Thaumatic tap, combined with every single volt present in the surrounding electrical grid at the time, flowed into the metal brace, and by extension, through Klarien.
The traitor tried to scream once more, but the muscles of his throat simply would not co-operate. He could only writhe silently, as the star-like energies bonded every atom of his tissue to every other atom through impromptu fusion, literally baking his body into a single scored structure.
The green of his scales withered away to a desiccated sickly brown as the last of the electricity finally made its way back to ground, at the expense of every single cell in Klarien's body.
As the final stray arcs fizzled away, all that remained were patches of flaking, half-vaporized brown scales, hanging off of blackened, fused bones.
Taranis snorted.
"Vescere bracis meis."
GMT: 14:39:32
PDT: 07:39:32
Ragnar: +01:39:32
Fyrenn winced, and braced himself against the ring of his hatch as the tank jolted severely. There was a loud 'CRUNCH,' and the remains of an abandoned car fell away to the rear as the treads regained traction on flat pavement.
"Watch it! The last thing we need is a jammed track!"
Neyla growled as she slammed one back paw into the right side accelerator pedal, and the other into the clutch.
"You do your job, I'll do mine!"
Further disputation was precluded by a series of dull pings, and slightly higher pitched zinging noises. Fyrenn hunched down to protect his head from the spray of rounds as best he could, wincing as one pierced a weak spot in the blast plate, and nicked his left ear.
He peered cautiously over the edge of the hatch. In the street ahead, a pair of large APCs had pulled out of a side alley, and taken up a roadblock position. Their twin upper guns were busy peppering the front of the tank, as dozens of troops disgorged from the rear bays, and took up cover positions behind the vehicles.
Fyrenn slammed one claw down on the rotation control for the turret, using the other to brace himself against the inside of the chamber. The space had not been able to accommodate him initially, so he had been forced to rip out the seat, harness, safety cage, and all forms of extra padding.
He groaned in dismay as he heard a series of rounds puncture the weaker lower glacis of the tank.
"Angle the armor!"
Neyla pressed her head further down into her compartment, and rammed down harder on both accelerators, shifting gears with a harsh grinding sound.
"What is that supposed to MEAN!?"
Fyrenn prematurely pulled back on the trigger mechanism in frustration, missing the first vehicle, and just barely clipping the front of the second. The aftershock of the impact scattered several of the troops, but did little to deter the fire support from the remainder.
"It means ANGLE the TANK!!! Forty five degrees, relative to THEM!!"
Neyla lessened her pressure on the left accelerator, slowing the treads and allowing the tank to push into an angle.
"Why exactly are we doing this?!"
Fyrenn hissed, and shouted as he worked.
"Because I SAID so! I don't have time to explain the finer points of ARMOR PHYSICS to you! Now hold STILL so I can get SHOTS!"
Neyla glowered, and slammed both back paws down on the brake pedal, nearly sending Fyrenn's beak through the front of his control console. More enemy rounds slammed into the front of the tank.
Unlike the previous volleys, however, the vast majority of the second wave turned into pointless ricochets, as the forty five degree angle greatly increased the effective thickness of the frontal armor.
"HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD---" Fyrenn paused, and pulled back on the trigger once more. Four rounds flew from the front of the main gun in half as many seconds, shredding the first vehicle and igniting its fuel supply into a spectacular fireball.
"--OF CLUTCH--" Fyrenn paused to cycle the weapon's capacitors, then took aim carefully at the second vehicle, dispatching four more shots directly into the most vulnerable part of its cupola.
"--BRAKING?!"
As if to lend emphasis to his anger, Fyrenn pulled back on the trigger again, and again, mercilessly levelling what was left of the burned out vehicles, and sending the corpses of the remaining soldiers flying in all directions.
Neyla hissed, and threw the tank back into gear. She finally managed to work out the clutch timings, and the vehicle reached full speed swiftly, slamming into the scrapped remains of the two APCs and bursting through onto the street beyond.
"If you don't like my driving---?!" She abruptly released the right accelerator, slammed down on the corresponding brake, and shifted down three gears in quick succession as the tank skidded around a corner, slamming abruptly into the side of another APC.
"---THEN SHUT UP AND GET OUT!"
Fyrenn nodded as he delivered his response in the same tone, with the same volume.
"FINE!"
Without warning, the red Gryphon pushed off from his hatch with both wings, and both back legs, pivoting into a startling backflip.
He landed hard on the rear of the third APC, digging in with all his claws for purchase as the vehicle shot down the street, still locked side by side with the tank, and producing a shower of sparks from the friction.
"Is this---"
Fyrenn's question was truncated by the need to dodge a rifle round. A soldier poked his head out of the commander's hatch, following up on his first shot with a panicked spray.
Fyrenn rolled to the side, releasing the roof momentarily to allow the laws of physics to move him across the intervening space swiftly and silently. He snatched the soldier by the shoulders, ripped him from the hatch, and threw him downwards towards the front wheels of his own vehicle.
The Gryphon paused only long enough to snatch a grenade from the man's belt, before he allowed him to fall to a very flat, and grisly death.
He pulled the pin nonchalantly from the weapon, casually allowing it to roll off his left claw, and fall perfectly into the open hatch. With only a short pause to ensure the grenade was fully inside, Fyrenn pushed off from the top of the APC, letting the force of his exit to slam the hatch shut behind him.
He completed the flip by landing on the front of the tank's upper glacis, just ahead of Neyla's hatch.
"Is this about---"
He winced, and raised the armored joint plate of his right wing as the APC exploded, once more cutting short his sentence. He inhaled slowly, and shook his head.
"Is this about the angling thing? Because there really was no time to explain..."
Neyla glared, her eyes filled with more fire than Fyrenn had ever seen there before. Her ears pinned back, and her brow narrowed dangerously.
"Its ABOUT the fact that you NEVER share your thought process..."
She paused to work the clutch, bringing the tank up to its maximum rated speed, and eliciting a mechanical scream from the engine compartment.
"...And you seem to think the ONLY way to deal with something you fear, is to BURN IT TO THE GROUND!"
Fyrenn's eyes widened, and he dug in as the tank slammed nose-first into the front end of a fourth APC. The impact sent both vehicles into a spin. Neyla feverishly worked the accelerator and braking pedals, trying to ensure the tank exited the maneuver in an ideal position.
Fyrenn exhaled sharply, "I get the sense we're not exactly having the same conversation."
Neyla raised one eyebrow sharply.
"YOU THINK!?"
Fyrenn nodded pensively, "Hold that thought for a sec please."
He darted up the front glacis of the tank, and vaulted forwards, just barely managing to take shelter in the turret nest before the first spray of enemy rounds peppered the front of the vehicle.
The red Gryphon yanked back on the turret rotation lever, and spun the construct around to face the enemy vehicle.
"SMILE, LOOK HERE..."
He flicked up the trigger cover, and peeked out over the top of the turret, sighting manually.
"AND WAIT FOR THE FLASH!"
The first rounds did less damage than expected. The APC had managed to exit its spin in a fairly good position as well, and the sharp angle of its frontal armor absorbed a fairly large part of the first shells' energy.
The follow-on volley, however, was more precisely targeted. It ripped directly through the front windscreen, and immolated the vehicle's interior, sending spall shards in all directions.
Fyrenn shook himself, and glanced down the access hatch into the interior of the rear compartment.
"Everyone OK back there?"
Skye's voice filtered up as a pained whisper.
"I think I bruised a rib."
Carradan chuckled nervously.
" 'OK' covers concussions right?"
Celestia's voice came more loudly, and with a slightly harsh undertone.
"Is this always how your kind works out romantic issues?"
Fyrenn nodded.
"YES!"
Neyla threw the tank back into gear.
"NO!"
The replies came at exactly the same time, with precisely the same furious timbre.
Celestia grunted in discomfort as the vehicle began to move again, "Do you think you could wait until later to settle this?"
Fyrenn nodded again, carefully cycling the capacitor and checking the ammunition count.
"Yes!"
Neyla let off the clutch, and pushed hard on both accelerators.
"No!"
Carradan rolled his eyes, and bit down hard on the five point harness, trying in vain to stabilize his body against the swaying of the chassis.
"Oh great. Marriage counseling in a Panzer."
Fyrenn snorted, "Actually, its called a---"
Neyla interrupted with a screech of warning, and a sharp turn. The sound of her voice was accompanied by the squeal of treads on pavement, and the rattle of more enemy rounds on the side of the turret.
"LESS BABBLE! MORE EFFECTIVE FIRE!"
Fyrenn grunted as he rotated the turret once more, lining up his shot carefully.
"I thought you wanted to talk things out now?!"
Neyla grimaced as a round shattered her windscreen, stopping just short of her beak.
"I stand corrected!"
Fyrenn chuckled harshly as he fired, "There! Was that so hard to say?!"
The shouting paused momentarily, as Fyrenn's shots struck home in the vehicle's fuel tanks, blowing it into three separate chunks. The debris flew several dozen feet in the air, before raining back down on the street.
Neyla sighed, and ducked once more as fire came from another direction.
"Look who's talking."
Out of the corner of one eye, Fyrenn caught a dull glint. Even as he began to rotate the turret, he knew the traverse would not be fast enough.
"RPG! LEFT FLANK!"
He pulled his head down as far as it would go, and braced himself. The tank shook, coming up and off its left side treads momentarily as the force of the blast lifted it several inches into the air on one side.
Luckily, the warhead struck the most heavily armored part of the engine cowl, denting it severely, but doing little else to compromise the workings of the tank. Nonetheless, the impact zone was suddenly a very real, very worrisome weak spot.
Before the offending soldier could finish reloading, and before Fyrenn could even fully recover his own faculties, A dark shape swooped down from above and ended his life on the bloody points of eight talons.
Fyrenn lifted his head cautiously over the lip of the turret to behold Kephic and Varan making short work of the remaining fire support teams in the square.
He took advantage of the brief reprieve to orient himself.
The groups helter-skelter adventure had brought them over halfway to the port, but the red Gryphon noted with some concern that they were veering gradually back inland as a result of their evasive maneuvers.
"We have to be more careful about our route. We've got less than five minutes now, and we can't afford any detours."
Neyla nodded grimly, "It's only borrowed after all."
Fyrenn chuckled, "The saying is 'only a rental.' "
Varan's voice filtered over their headsets as he finished skewering the last soldier on his own bayonet.
"Here is a more apropos proverb. There is a time and a place for everything."
Kephic chuckled, "Yeah, except maybe for those two in a tank. The world was not prepared for that."
GMT: 14:40:05
PDT: 07:40:05
Ragnar: +01:40:05
"So... Do you have a plan? Or are we just going to do this Custer style?"
Lieutenant McBride downshifted, and threw the APC into a sharp turn, pushing the suspension precisely to its limits.
"It's very simple. We approach from behind, where their main weapon will be ineffective. You will handle the charges, I will handle any resistance."
McBride smiled as he glanced through the upper portion of the windshield, and caught the glint of the sun off Shierel's armor as she zipped by overhead.
"And you'll handle the drinks when we're done."
"Excuse me?"
The Lieutenant chuckled as he pushed into third gear, and completed another hairpin turn.
"Officer in charge always buys the drinks ma'am. It's tradition."
After a lengthy pause, Shierel's voice once again filtered over the Lieutenant's headset.
"Ah. Agreed. On one condition."
"Sure thing."
"My name is Shierel. Please use it."
Lieutenant McBride smiled as he floored the accelerator.
"Fine. If we're not standing on ceremony, then call me Bill."
"I am not standing on anything. That is what my wings are for."
McBride chuckled, "You're gonna have to work on those colloquialisms Shierel."
"And you will need to change lanes shortly."
"Sorry, what?"
The Lieutenant barely had time to finish the thought before he realized he was on track to a head on collision with a fire truck. He juked the control levels sharply, and slid across the road with only inches to spare.
"How much farther now?"
Shierel banked away behind a small hillock, but her voice continued to issue forth loud and clear.
"Take the next right, then drive about four stadia, take the left fork, then drive one half a spear's throw and you'll be there."
Bill snorted, and stomped on the brake pedal, skidding into the specified right turn.
"Would ya mind giving me that in metric?"
Shierel paused for a long moment. McBride watched in fascination as her form came back into view, gliding silently above his head, and keeping pace with the APC effortlessly.
"Unless my arithmetic is mistaken; Six tenths of a kilometer, then two hundred meters after the fork."
There was a moment of lull in the conversation. The comfortingly familiar sound of the APC's twelve cylinder hydrogen fuel cell engine filled the silence.
McBride squinted as he reached the fork, then tapped the side of his headset.
"Hang on... You can throw a spear four hundred meters?!"
"No, my best accurate distance is three hundred and sixty five. The record among my kind is seven hundred and twenty for a heavy javelin. But four hundred is the accepted average for measurement. Assuming an average Alarian fighting spear, and not a Sagittar heavy javelin..."
McBride whistled.
"Geeeeez. You bird-lion people are scary."
He paused as he came to the fork, braking slightly and shaking his head, "Sorry. I meant that as a compliment..."
"It was taken as such. We have arrived."
The lieutenant nodded, and revved the APC's engine menacingly.
"Is this a bad time to mention that I've never used the fire control systems on this thing?"
GMT: 14:40:52
Ragnar: +01:40:52
When the rods first encountered the Thermosphere, there was little to no visible indication of their arrival. Their trajectories had diverged to the point that they were separated by dozens of kilometers.
Any amateur observers watching the Earth's orbit, let alone large telescopes, would have abruptly seen the first herald of the forthcoming apocalypse at 14:40:53 Greenwich Mean Time.
Precisely on cue the rods' twin miniature liquid hydrogen engines ignited.
Trailing immense streamers of red and gold, the two specters of the grim reaper spiraled Earthward at an astonishing twenty seven thousand times the speed of sound at sea level, accelerating at seven hundred gravitational standard force units.
Oberth effect took over briefly as the injection boosters spent their meager supply of fuel, further increasing both the acceleration and speed of the weapons.
Their motors at last exhausted, the onboard computers programmed a final set of steering instructions into the remaining guidance fins, before ejecting the entire rear casing, and engine housing, for atmospheric annihilation upon re-entry.
The final stage of the Thor flight profile had begun.
GMT: 14:41:03
PDT: 07:41:03
Ragnar: +01:41:03
A series of rounds barely missed the top of Fyrenn's skull as he finished gimballing the turret into optimum position. As he let loose on the latest HLF vehicle to join the chase, he had to raise his voice to thunderous levels to be heard over the sound of weapons fire.
"WE SEEM TO BE A VERY POPULAR TARGET!"
Kephic's voice filtered over his headset, slightly more subdued in tone. In the background, Fyrenn could easily make out a series of screams, and the staccato rattle of carbines, as his brother attempted to remove another APC from the equation.
"They know, or suspect, that we have a plan. That's enough reason for them to be worried."
Fyrenn watched with satisfaction as one of the four vehicles pursuing them erupted in flames, struck a guardrail, and began to flip end over end rapidly.
"EFFECTIVE FIRE INCOMING! LEFTMOST ENEMY!"
Fyrenn allowed his warning several seconds to sink in, before loosing nearly a sixth of his remaining magazine at the offending APC. The vehicle drove head-on into the rounds, shredding into a streak of fire, fuel, rubber, and metal on the roadway, as if it had struck a solid wall.
Only two APCs remained to the rear. Fyrenn contorted his head to read the indicator screen in his compartment. The readout listed an abysmally low number of remaining rounds, as well as extensive damage to the engine housing, a loose track bearing, and several gaping holes in the frontal lower glacis plate.
Fyrenn glanced up, and perked both ears, as a new sound infringed upon the chaotic din of battle.
He watched, puzzled, as the two remaining APCs stood on their brakes, and skidded to a halt in the middle of the road. As the tank moved forward onto a small bridge, Fyrenn identified the new sound, and suddenly realized why.
"Oh fantastic. They brought close-air support."
He paused and examined the jet as it streaked over the edge of the horizon, growing nearer with each passing second.
"These By'rshn-da really don't give up..."
Neyla sighed as she began a series of serpentine maneuvers between abandoned trucks and cars.
"All that linguistics I taught you, and you use it for name-calling?"
Fyrenn glared down the sights of the turret, and began to rotate the gun onto an upward track.
"Like you said; I learned from *you.*"
The red Gryphon fired a pair of exploratory shots, but both went wide. The pilot of the YF-23 was simply too far out for the rounds to close before he could react to the muzzle flash.
"I'm coming up on Winchester with my ammo rack! I can't afford to waste more ordnance on this little duck hunt."
Fyrenn glared, as he locked eyes with the pilot of the jet. Though the man could not see him, Fyrenn could make out every detail of his face.
Varan's voice came filtering back through his headset, "We will not be able to reach him in time to prevent him from launching his first attack."
Neyla pressed harder on the accelerator, shaking her head slowly and squinting to see through her damaged windscreen.
"His first attack will probably be the LAST for us! If he has any missiles left, there won't be enough of this tank left to fill thimbles!"
Fyrenn growled, and slammed one claw into the side of his hatch in frustration.
"He has three air-to-ground devices left. I have twenty rounds, and we've got less than ten seconds before he has lock."
To the Gryphons' surprise, a new voice abruptly injected itself into the conversation.
"Open the rear hatch."
Fyrenn glanced down and raised an eyebrow.
"With all due respect Your Highness? They'll turn you into the world's best pincushion stand-in before you could so much as sneeze."
Celestia's voice remained calm, with a hint of somber resignation.
"Please do as I ask. I would very much like for all of you, myself, and everyone else in this city, to live to see tomorrow. Even if it means doing something I am loathe to do."
Neyla shrugged and flicked the appropriate toggle on her console.
"Well if no one else has any bright ideas..."
Fyrenn peered over the edge of the turret, and watched in fascination as Celestia stepped to the edge of the compartment. The road whizzed by at seventy kilometers an hour underneath, generating a constant stream of sparks as the edge of the door dragged against the duracrete.
True to Fyrenn's predictions, a series of long-range high-velocity railsnipe rounds came flying directly at the Alicorn's head. To the Gryphon's surprise, she deflected them with tiny magical shields, as if they were no more annoyance than a small gnat.
Fyrenn was on the verge of asking her what she hoped to accomplish, when the world suddenly, briefly, grew a few million lumens brighter.
With a sound somewhere between the crack of thunder, and the melodic rumble of a church bell, a short, sharp stream of pure yellow-white light shot forth from Celestia's horn. The bolt crossed the space between the tank, and the Widow Fighter at nearly the speed of light itself, moving at a velocity that was jaw-droppingly fast even by a Gryphon's standards.
The bolt hit the YF-23 square on in its left jet intake, turning the metal of the intake housing, the turbine, and most of the left wing white hot within a millisecond.
Both engines erupted into flames instantaneously thereafter.
As the back of the aircraft swiftly morphed into an expanding tangle of smoke, fire, and twisted aluminum, the jet fell into a shallow dive, combined with a flat spin.
Maintaining much of its original forward momentum, the Widow slammed cockpit-first into the left anchor point of the bridge, slicing through the majority of the cabling and shearing into a dozen burning pieces.
Neyla pressed the accelerator pedals all the way to the floor, and the tank careened off the far end of the bridge, just as the structure began to groan, and cave under its own weight.
Only once the vehicle was completely safe did the Gryphoness bother to close the rear hatch once again.
Fyrenn carefully began rotating the turret back to a forward-firing configuration, shaking his head and inhaling deeply.
He whispered into his mic as quietly as he could.
"We are never. Ever. Calling her sun-butt again."
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When it comes to dragons vs dragon, the one with the ranged breath weapon will usually win
And another marriage about to be need counseling
Well, those of us who can stand up to her level of firepower still reserved the right to do so
Great chapter!
Eat my pants? : )
11024531
Got it in one!
The rumble in the concrete jungle was one of my favorite fight scenes to write; Gryphons are all about speed, precision, evasion... When Dragons fight, its like Pacific Rim, but with the worlds greatest reptiles instead of mechs. It's fun to write choreography for that kind of visceral destructive power.