A/N-Another long wait, but hopefully this makes up for it: the longest chapter I've done yet, and it's nothing but action. Read on!
Chapter 28
A Game of Attrition
-0-
The player shifts the board
The pawns they follow suit
A move of practiced ease
A win of little loot
One gives
One takes
One feints
One fakes
The rules stand as they were
In the end a single aim
Yet unlike chess or checkers
War is a deadly game
-0-
Malin realized he had made a small mistake when he saw the first jet on screen make an attempt to fry the dragon he knew to be Hawken, only for the energy beam to reverse direction seconds later and vaporize the craft.
He was not, however, expecting the additional complication of the dragon boy's half-sibling Terrible Terror possessing the same capability. Immediately after the littler dragon brought down another quinjet on her own he reached over and opened up the channels to all the jets he was in contact with.
"Do not, I repeat, do not fire the energy weapons or any explosives at Hawken or the Terror!" he ordered. "They will use it against us; do not give them that advantage! Send in the fliers; Pitch, I need your nightmares up against the dragons, and"-
"Sir?"
"What?!"
Malin swung around to face one of the men at the sonar platform, who was staring at one of the screens with concern. He looked up timidly, and motioned Malin over.
"U-unless there's a malfunction in our sonar systems, we have another problem," he said anxiously, pointing to the screen where a table of oceanic depth values was rapidly fluctuating. "Either the floor of the ocean itself is moving, or there is something very large rising up toward us."
Malin peered closer to confirm the observation, before his eyes widened and he punched the intercom button again, but for a different channel.
"Launch the submarine defenses! All vessels on alert for undersea attacks, move now!"
Another alarm went off, and on the screens Malin saw a pair of ships shudder suddenly and tilt in the water, a green crystalline mass of ice erupting between them and locking the vessels in place. Seconds later, a wake appeared in the water, as something massive surged toward them, and a pair of enormous tusks rose out of the sea to slam into the closest of the trapped ships. Even through the radio relays the scream of tearing metal was almost painful as the hull was shredded, rendering the ship useless. Malin grimaced at the loss.
"He fights with Berkian Vikings," he growled, "how did I miss the possibility of a Bewilderbeast entering the fight?" Turning, he made sure that the barrier defenses were operating around the ship he was on, before clicking the intercom again. "Directive orders to all aquatic vessels: torpedoes on the Bewilderbeast, and drive it from the fleet! Guard the jet hangar crafts and"-
"Sensors are picking up another disturbance!" the sonar monitor interrupted, before cringing when he realized he'd cut his boss off a second time. Malin shot him a look, before his gaze turned to the screen as the monitor brought up the image. This time an object was truly discernible, not as large but seemingly a fair bit longer, and it was moving fast as it undulated not up from below them, but instead emerging from the outer ocean and racing toward them.
Malin growled in frustration and turned to the intercom yet again. "Vessels to the rear of the fleet, if you have not done so yet, erect your defenses now!"
One of the screens on the main display flashed up with a view toward the east, and after only a moment the rising wake became visible beyond the furthest ships. The vessel it was aiming for shimmered, their force field erected fully, but the threat didn't slow. Seconds later, the head of a reptile Malin had definitely never seen before erupted from the sea, towering over the ship before dropping down hard. The fields surrounding both of them fired, before sparks exploded around the ship as the creature wrapped its long body around the vessel and squeezed. Nearby weapons deployed, only to be deflected by the barrier borne by the reptile, and the ship in its clutches screeched as metal crumpled inward under pressure. Soon, both sank from the surface, and moments later the reptile's head resurfaced, piercing blue eyes scanning the fleet.
"Energy weapons target the sea serpent!" Malin ordered now, glaring at the image still before him. "It has a barrier field and"-
He was cut off (again, and it was truly becoming irksome how he could never finish his thoughts anywhere) as the speakers in the ship around him crackled, and a new, deep-yet-silky voice rang through them. "It's Oceanguard to you, Malin, not sea serpent," it said, the proclamation immediately catching Malin well off-guard. "Count yourself lucky as I can't pinpoint you, but you might find the use of your beam weapons less than effective here; your use of the intercoms might be of little help as well."
The head of the Oceanguard turned, and though he had claimed that he couldn't source Malin's location, he managed to lock gazes directly with the camera pinned on him, before rapidly submerging again.
Malin's mind immediately went into a panicked overdrive, trying to identify something that would have the capacity to fight both the Bewilderbeast and the serp- ahem, Oceanguard, and keep them busy long enough for the fleet to move in for the next phase. An idea soon crossed his mind, and he told the monitors to have the submarines stand by as his gaze turned to the sea. A wave of unholy power raced out from the man toward the ocean he watched.
Below the fleet, Jordan immediately noticed something change around him, the pressure in the water altering dramatically and detectably to the senses of a marine animal like him.
::Tohar, we've got something else down here,:: he growled out as he dove under another vessel, scanning the depths beneath him even as he arced his tail upward, shorting out the ship's barrier field as he carved a gash in the hull with the Mysteel edges his family had fitted on his fins; the water rapidly rushing into the gaping hole would take care of the rest.
Tohar swam up next to the Oceanguard, the ocean swirls behind the Bewilderbeast threatening the stability of several other nearby ships in the fleet. ::I felt it too,:: he agreed. ::Take to the north, I'll take the south; search the floor and we'll find-::
Something huge, metallic, and fast erupted out of the depths and clamped down on Tohar's tail, dragging him downward. Jordan reacted immediately, diving down alongside his partner and wrapping several coils around the object, anchoring himself as he slammed his armored tailfins into it. The sound of ripping metal resounded through the water, and the object released Tohar, allowing the Bewilderbeast to turn and face the direction the attack had emerged from. As it retreated, they both traced with their eyes the length of the object to its origin.
It was massive, staring up at them from along the floor of the ocean. Both Jordan and Tohar were used to being the biggest things to ever move within the water, and they felt dwarfed by the new presence. The arm that the metal claw had been attached to was nearly the length of the Bewilderbeast on its own, beyond which extended the plated body, propelled by spindly legs clearly stronger than they looked to be and a tail as wide as an aircraft carrier. The head was almost laughably small by comparison, adorned by glowing lenses for eyes and what looked like tentacles surrounding the region where an organism's mouth would have been.
::Tell me, I am not the only one gaining a dreadful feeling over this, am I?:: Jordan muttered as he stared with widening eyes.
Tohar nodded agreement, spreading the spiny fin-like wings on his sides instinctively. ::Malin's made another weapon,:: he replied softly. ::Stay out of the line of fire, and find weak points! Oh, and call Hawken now!::
I swerved around the side of an F-16 on our side and fired point-blank at a quinjet, the plasma orb exploding in the cockpit and sending the craft to the water below, before turning on a dime and flaring my wings wide to slow down.
"Valka, behind you!" I yelled through my com, seeing a lone Bioraptor hurtling down toward the Stormcutter and his rider. As Cloudjumper rolled Valka kept pace around him (I still don't know how she manages that), turning and bringing the serrated end of her staff up to cleave the black sand abomination in half. Then, as soon as Cloudjumper had managed to right himself, Valka pulled out a special weapon she'd acquired from our military allies from the pack on her dragon's side, and aimed the barrel at a rocket screaming in from one of the ships. One click of a button, and a rocket-propelled grenade whistled through the air into the other explosive, taking out both in a deafening blast that knocked even another nearby rocket off course and in the direction of one of Malin's deployment vessels.
"Hawken!" I heard suddenly through the com, diverting my attention away and out toward the main fleet. It was Jordan, and if he was calling me, something had gone way wrong.
"Malin's deployed something massive down below," he explained, "looks like a metal lobster but it's huge!"
"A lobster? How big is this thing?"
"One arm is as long as Tohar is, whole thing has to be five times my length or more and HOLY WHAT THE?!"
A bright flash erupted out of the water beyond the ships, a stream of unidentifiable energy that split the air and dissipated somewhere beyond the barrier of clouds high above us. A sound like thunder on steroids followed, water boiling from contact with the attack.
I had seen something like it before, however, and a memory of a favorite old cartoon surfaced and sent a chill down my spine.
"Leviathan," I muttered quietly.
"What?"
"A movie rendition of the Leviathan, it's an Atlantean weapon! Whatever you do, do not let it shoot you!"
"I surmised as much, thanks. How do we beat it?"
I grimaced as I tried to wrack my brain for an answer, and found none. "I don't know; maybe you can short it out somehow. I'm coming do- oh, no."
I spoke too soon. A simultaneous metal-on metal cacophony sounded from several vessels at the southern end of the fleet, hatches on their decks opening wide as dozens of odd, winged machines took to the air. They looked like a cross between the Falcon flight wings and humanoid drones, and bristled with weapons to match. Several dragon riders broke from the battles along the city's edge to go after the new deployments, and the sound of gunshots and large projectiles whistling through the air reached my ears.
"Urgh, going to have to scratch that plan Jordan," I apologized, "I've got another threat to deal with. Call General Rickheimer and get him to send assistance. Thor, Aurianna, if you're still out around the ships, we've got a new assignment!"
I flared my wings and banked, letting out a jet of fire that engulfed several of the machines at once, followed by a pulse of lightning that shorted out a couple more. One of them banked a turn sharp enough to give a dragon a run for its money, evading the attack and coming in close to burn a long, painful line across my flank. I instinctively roared in pain before healing the injury over and lunging, getting a good, thorough view of the contraption before I ripped it in two: a complex of moving parts and advanced technological weaponry that confirmed my guess; just like the quinjets, Malin had filched designs from Marvel for several of his ideas.
Thunder echoed through the sky and I looked up to see the grey clouds swirling high above me. The cloudscape lit up like a neon sign from the jagged bolt that arced downward, circling around one of the two Asgard warriors I'd called for. Thor raced past me, a far-too-happy for the occasion grin on his face as he spun Mjollnir in a fast arc and lit up the sky a second time, a spider's web of electricity dancing between the machines and either shorting them out or making them explode.
"His tricks never end, do they?" he quipped over the din, sending a bolt my direction and charging me up again.
I shook my head as I fired my own shot. "The human imagination is an incredibly vast place I'm afraid," I answered. "If we don't strain him he could continue dredging up new evils for quite some time!"
"Then best we figure out how to end this fight swiftly!"
I nodded in agreement and turned with my paws raised, sparks fizzling off them, before stalling at a new sight.
Aurianna I had already known possessed a unique gift; her manipulations of minerals and metals had come in handy for us all more times than I could count. She had been traveling around in the battle using a magnetic field, rushing through the air as easily as most of the dragons could, but now that same field had apparently taken on a new twist: the broken and shattered pieces of Malin's own weapons were halting in their descent toward the ocean, and rising up toward the woman, twisting and breaking apart further as the field she controlled linked them up together. The result was a rather disturbing mish-mashed semi-humanoid shell of armor that was growing in size by the second.
Aurianna swung one arm and the shell mimicked her movements, a "hand" of sharp metallic edges careening through another of the fliers and shredding it apart, adding to the armor, padding up the arm and turning warheads toward the palm.
"In such a battle it is wise to use the enemy's weapons against him" she said amusedly, the hand morphing in shape and bringing to bear a gaggle of aggregating projectiles. The magnetic field flexed as she squeezed her own hand into a fist, and they fired, disintegrating two more fliers before Aurianna turned to regard the closest of the ships they were disembarking from. "One sunken ship on order," she announced, and the floating armor giant dropped through the air, racing down toward the vessel with Thor right behind her, as I took up the job of removing the fliers already in the air alongside the other riders and a couple of jets that had come in alongside us.
Aurianna's creation slammed into the deck of the ship, bearing the brunt of the hail of bullets that rained up from the infantry on board, and she brought a hand down, the "fingers" punching through the deck and ripping it up. The other hand came down and lengthened, sharpening into a jagged blade that ripped deeper into the ship, tearing it wide open like she was preparing to undergo open heart surgery on it.
A loud gunshot sounded, and suddenly Aurianna found herself being knocked to the side as an explosion ripped against her armor. She rolled and came to stand upright again with the momentum, turning to face the direction the shot had come from; she'd completely missed the mounted turret somehow that was drawing a bead on her already, and she grimaced, activating a new stone on her wristband. Sparks jumped off the armor, and a yellowish halo encircled it as the mortar gun fired a second time.
The explosion ensued like the last had, but the energy froze and the flames redirected, flowing down rivets in the shell and pummeling into the gash Aurianna had already torn into the ship. Seconds later, something beneath her exploded, shaking the vessel from within, and the ship began to tilt, taking on water rapidly and sinking into the sea.
Aurianna directed herself up, and twisted her hand, a section of the deck ripping away and hovering in front of her. She could just barely see the soldier manning the turret cringe at the realization of their position just before she let the debris fly. A lightning bolt from Thor as he came in electrified the metal sheet, erupting in an electrical short-out as it sheared through the turret, shutting down the rest of the ship in a cascade and making it sink ever faster. Another bolt emanated from Aurianna's brother, and every last man on the deck would no longer suffer the fate of drowning in cold ocean water.
Another mortar slammed into Aurianna's armor, rocking her off balance before she righted herself and both of them turned their attention to another vessel nearby.
"Round two," Thor chuckled, pulling a small, shiny object off of his belt (another of Aurianna's handiworks) and glancing at his sister. She nodded once, and they launched off the deck.
Loki was having an odd moment, taking a second to consider the position he was in. How he managed to end up on the same street as the twins he'd never know, but at the same time, he would also never admit to anyone that he was also somewhat enjoying himself as he watched them. After all, the three of them were all mischief makers by nature.
This, in turn, did not bode well for the battalion of vehicles making their way through the streets, flanked by men outfitted with particle weapons that none of the Berkians or their allies had ever seen the likes of: tapered spears that stuck out from the soldiers' packs like the maneuverable legs of an arthropod, twisting and turning as they burned holes into buildings and sliced through street lamps with blinding azure beams.
Tuffnut had made the first move, yelling out bloody murder as he leapt off of Barfbelch and rolled over the top of one of the tanks, dragging the serrated tip of his double-ended spear through the turret mount and immediately drawing the attention of the particle weapon wielders. A shot lanced upward toward the Zippleback still hovering above them, narrowly missing but setting off his barrier as the energy partially bypassed the protection. Shortly thereafter, Ruff somersaulted down to join her brother, standing back-to-back on the side of the tank that Tuff had damaged. They were clearly within range of the particle weapons, but…the soldiers didn't dare take the shot at them, lest they vaporized the tank behind the two lunatics and killed everyone in the resulting explosion that would occur.
That was when Loki leapt off of the nearby balcony, making his presence known a lot more silently than the twins had as a pair of swords appeared in his hands. He spun through one line of men, taking out three particle weapons and their wielders before a shot from another raced just past his arm, forcing him to dodge the man running up behind him, beam after beam carving into buildings and the cement of the sidewalk.
Loki spun, his black coat flaring outward dramatically, as he flicked up a broken sign at his pursuer with the tip of one of his blades. One beam seared outward, the sign disintegrating, but it had been enough of a distraction; the man looked down just in time to see a throwing dart leave Loki's hand and bury itself into his chest.
From the opposite direction, another beam suddenly shot out, searing straight through Loki's middle, the Asgard warrior suddenly freezing, wide-eyed. Slowly, his figure faded to nothing, leaving this new attacker standing puzzled at what had happened to his quarry; either he should have vaporized, or fallen down dead, and neither had occurred.
A second later, something small and metallic answered his question, flying out from the window of a nearby building and clinging to one of the arms of his weapon. The soldier's eyes widened when he saw a pinpoint of light blink twice in rapid succession, and too late he reached to pull it off.
The device went off, veins of extreme heat racing outward and frying both man and machine, leaving behind nothing but twisted metal and ash.
Loki himself hadn't leapt onto the street; instead it had just been one of his holograms, fighting with the weapons controlled by Loki's telekinetic ability. The Guardian himself was watching from nearby, deploying several of the semi-solid holograms around the twins and throwing out another set of the small cylinders that electrocuted the Vikings' opponents as they went off, freeing Ruff and Tuff to dive into the fray again, attacking under the cover of Loki's deception.
"AAAAHHHH!"
Seconds later, Loki realized why Ruff and Tuff had appeared to be leading this attack on their own, as something very large and heavy came careening down a side street, barreling into one of the tanks and knocking it over, sending up a cloud of dust to mingle with the fog above.
Out of the cloud loomed Fishlegs, wild-eyed and swinging a very large hammer and followed by a heavily armored Meatlug who looked like her head-on collision with the similarly armored vehicle had been little more than a romp in the park. Their entrance caused several of the armed soldiers to pause in surprise, and Fishlegs zeroed in on the one facing off with Ruffnut.
"That's my wife you slug-eating scoundrel!" the burly Viking yelled, launching his hammer and looking mighty pleased with himself as it caught the man in the gut, hard, throwing him into the nearest building and embedding him there.
Ruff grinned at the act, and turned to give Fishlegs a peck on the cheek before spinning around to drive her own spear into the new enemy scrambling around the nearest tank to shoot her.
Fishlegs' strong point had never been in battle of course, but there was a good reason he'd stayed paired with his wife and her brother: under great stress a trait many Vikings had labeled the "Berserk" state tended to turn on in him, leading him to be as unpredictable as the twins themselves and just as dangerous to face off with. Though he would always attribute his winning Ruffnut over to his personality or having saved her life in the fight against Jezebel, Fishlegs knew the Berserk streak in him was one thing that definitely drew the female twin to his side.
"Loki!" the coms buzzed as Feren called through. "If you're by the twins get them ready! We're being routed by the wargs and heading your direction!"
Loki cursed under his breath and finally revealed his true self, teleporting to the top of one of the active tanks and sweeping his hand over the turret. The barrel followed his lead, and with a clench of his fist it fired, driving through the vehicle lines behind the tank and halting any further progress.
"Ruff, Tuff!" he yelled. "Head for the river! We've got more coming our way!"
The others nodded and backed up, throwing off a couple of imminent attacks and following Loki as he turned toward the East River, upending a tank behind him to momentarily stall pursuers.
The river was clear of traffic due to the evacuation, but was still shrouded in fog like the rest of the city as the four of them and their two dragons moved out onto a bridge spanning the water. Barely a minute later, unearthly howls echoed through the buildings as the legion of wargs that had been chasing Feren and company made themselves known.
The Macawnivore scaled the side of an empty apartment building as the first of the creatures and the armored soldiers the twins' team had faced raced off the streets. Then he leapt, tacking the nearest warg and throwing it toward Fishlegs, who caved in its skull with his hammer, before swinging his tail out and driving the Mysteel blades decorating it through the arms of a particle weapon on the nearest soldier.
The big cat barely had a moment to breathe before another warg leapt at him, stalled and driven away slightly by the barrier field but soon landing on his back and throwing Feren off balance, both of them skidding across the pavement.
Twin streams of flame erupted out of the fog above, the liquid fire from the Nightmares hidden within raking across a line of soldiers with more conventional weapons. Loki took the cover fire as a chance to throw in another of his devices, the tiny cylinder exploding into heat veins and intensifying the fires already present. Then, Loki swung out his swords and leapt past the flames, followed closely by the twins.
The wargs were still coming though, two of them pairing up against the slower but no less difficult target of Meatlug as she hovered near Fishlegs, the Viking himself squaring off against another of the beasts. Up above, Thuggory signaled to Snotlout before the two of them both jumped down, right into the path of the weaponized soldiers; the both of them appearing out of seemingly nowhere gave the men pause.
Then the first one fired, deadly beams lancing toward Snotlout…until the Viking heaved up a broken slab of concrete that was at least double his weight and threw it in the path of the beams. Most of the slab vaporized, but several shards survived and kept going, pelting the opposing forces and puncturing vests. Thuggory gained a similar idea, grabbing up the twisted remains of a lamp post that had been taken out earlier and holding it up.
"Hey Snotlout, care to play a little ball?" he called out, swinging the post into the nearest soldier and sending him flying into the river. Snotlout grinned and leapt into the oncoming ranks, picking up the startled men and tossing them toward his partner, each of them meeting the end of the post and either joining the first in the freezing river or disappearing through the windows and hard sides of nearby buildings.
A lucky shot suddenly ripped out of the ranks and struck a glancing blow against Thuggory's barrier field, the energy shell blocking most of the attack but failing to stop some of the heat. It broiled by, leaving a searing burn across the Viking's exposed hand. Thuggory yelped in surprise and pain, and lost hold of the post for a moment before looking up in irritation and leaping forward, landing a punch in the chest of the nearest man and throwing him into his comrades behind.
"That was for burning my good hand!" Thuggory snarled. "And this," he continued lowly, grabbing the post again and bringing it down hard on the dazed men, "is for fighting on the wrong side."
Leaving the battered lamp where it was, the Viking spotted an abandoned car nearby (somehow still intact) and leapt behind it, picking up the vehicle. "Snotlout, duck!" he yelled as he threw the whole thing. Snotlout, for once, did not look up with a puzzled expression and get clobbered, but instead did the smart thing and dropped flat to the ground as the car sailed past, carrying several of the soldiers surrounding him with it.
"Thanks for the warning!" he yelled back as he picked himself up off the ground, turning to help take down the wargs and enemy infantry still pouring out of the city now that most of the carriers of the particle weapons were down and out for the count.
The entire scene, defenders and offensive, froze as a chilling disembodied laughter swept by, and the air itself seemed to darken for a moment before the feeling moved on. Behind it, however, growls and shrieks began to echo from all around as the black sand Bioraptors that had kept hidden beforehand began to materialize around them.
"Dammit, isn't there ever a break?!" Snotlout griped, turning and pulling out his hammer and sending it through one of the monstrosities as it sailed down on its unnaturally smooth, sharpened wings.
"It's war, Snotlout, there's never rest for the weary!" Thuggory shot back, grabbing the sword on his back as another came his way.
It was Fishlegs though who noticed where the shadow of Pitch seemed to be heading.
"Hawken, we've got an issue!" he yelled into his com, hoping the morpher would hear as he looked on toward the island of Manhattan with concern.
"The whole war is an issue Fish!" the reply came back bitingly. "I'm caught up with Valka, Phlegma, and Thor out here against"-
"Pitch has shown himself, Hawken, and he's headed for the heart of Manhattan! I know Eret and company are over there currently, and Stoick and Odin are leading out the military troops! If he reaches them…"
The threat hung in the air, Fishlegs forced to look away as another warg leapt at him, the burly Viking ducking and landing a glancing blow before the monster turned back to face him.
"Alright, I'm on my way," Hawken finally replied. "Call up Eret if you can, and the others in the area, and if they can manage then send Hiccup, Toothless, and Amethyst in too. I'm going Shadow!"
Fishlegs nodded to himself, relaying the message as best he could under the pressure of the fight before swinging his hammer again, this time catching the warg that had been dancing around him across the jaw, a shudder-inducing crack sounding from the blow and the monster dropping to the ground. He took half a second to suck in a large breath, winded already, before turning and rolling out of the way of the next opponent.
Jake, Eret, and Spitfire had been pushed back through the subway tunnels to nearly where Kingsley had been stationed as the Bioraptor swarm grew in its intensity; with each second the atmosphere grew darker, and all four of the fighters could feel entities staring out from within their opponents that were not earthly in nature. Though the monsters were easily destroyed, the sand abominations never seemed to end either, with two appearing with every one that was brought down. They easily got through the force fields, their claws, teeth, and barbed tails meeting Myscale or, in Jake's case, rock hard scales that even if damaged turned out to be healing at an incredibly rapid rate; the rattlesnake attributed this to his new association with the dragon boy. After all, Hawken seemed to have a propensity to never stay wounded for long, and all of the Descendants (the original or those "adopted in") carried something normally unique only to the shapeshifter.
The four of them had been fighting outright for a length of time they had long since lost track of, and were deep within the tunnels, a very fair distance away from any decent exit. No good was that when hidden in pitch dark and fighting creatures that gave off only the faintest traces of heat to separate them from the walls of the subway, forcing all of them to rely on what little light was down there and detect outlines against the brick and metal walls instead.
That was when Fishlegs' relay came in clear to all of them: "Eret, Jake! You guys need to get out of there, Pitch has been detected and is heading your direction!"
"Easier said than done, Fishlegs!" Eret yelled back. "We're surrounded by Bioraptors and nowhere near an exit!"
"Call for backup then! I know Stoick –AAAHH! –sorry, I know Stoick is nearby somewhere! I have to go, got my own battle to win!"
The com clicked off, and Eret glanced up at Spitfire, who was crawling across the ceiling. "Alright, let's move!" he yelled. "The sooner we get out the better –ha!" he exclaimed as he drove his knife through another Bioraptor and jumped past. "Stoick, are you nearby? We need assistance getting out of the subway system!"
There was a moment with no response, before the chief's voice answered in their ears. "I'll send a part your way then; we're holding off okay up here, what's happening?"
"Bioraptors, and Fishlegs just relayed that Pitch"-
Eret was cut off as something new, and far more powerful, erupted out from the walls, slamming both him and Jake to the ground in one blow. A moment later an unnatural scythe of black cleaved through the air, cutting a deep gash across an unprotected portion of Eret's arm and sinking through the base of Jake's tail, twisting hard and sending searing agony up the rattler's spine as blood painted the walls.
"I'll leave you here to rot, traitor!" Pitch snarled, before throwing Spitfire and Kingsley across the tunnel by their tails and vanishing.
Jake groaned, turning as the hole in his tail slowly sealed up again and looked up at his comrades. Kingsley would be fine, quick healer that he was like Jake, but Spitfire was suffering from a sprained wing and rear right leg from the toss and Eret's wound was bleeding profusely.
"Eret, Jake? What happened?" Stoick called in over the com again.
"Pitch attacked, and he just left with all the Bioraptors," Jake replied, before suddenly swiveling around and blasting one in half. "Most of them anyway. We need Freyja; Spitfire and Eret have been hit badly. We'll try to make it to an exit."
The snake moved forward, carefully picking up the injured Changewing and laying him across his back, and then he bent down with his mouth open and hoisted up Eret (despite the man's protest) and slithered through the darkness of the tunnel as rapidly as he dared, searching for the nearest exit as Kingsley brought up defense to his back.
The Bioraptors turned out to still be more numerous than they'd hoped. Eret was forced to ignore the fact that he was dangling from a rattlesnake's mouth and instead wielded his knife with his good arm as Jake whipped his tail in a blur to his sides, flattening the creatures within reach and sending bullets through the rest. Kingsley moved to cover Spitfire, the Changewing vulnerable from above as he tried to avoid further injuring his limbs and the cobra lunging like liquid electricity as the demons materialized in every direction around them, frenzied for a kill.
Finally, after what felt like hours (though it would later turn out to only have been a couple of minutes), Jake spotted a station with stairs heading up to the streets above, and turned to slide up the exit. Halfway up, moving lights appeared, materializing as Freyja, Heimdall, and a good dozen military infantry.
Heimdall slipped past Jake as the rattler set Eret down for a moment, joining Kingsley in beating back the swarm, and the tunnel lit up from the flash of the seer's crackling blade. It swept through the oncoming line of Bioraptors as if they didn't exist, giving everyone just enough time to back out of the subway altogether and onto the streets.
Freyja immediately focused on Eret, placing her hands on his arm and drawing up power. As she did, the gash under her hands slowly cleared out and sealed up, before the healer ran to Spitfire, who had slid off of Jake's back in the momentary pause as the snake turned his head to regard Stoick's approach.
"Hawken's been called in, most likely te deal with Pitch," the chief said curtly, "but we need te keep watch around the soldiers if he shows up here again."
"I know," Jake quipped back, before looking around. "I know that big park's nearby; if we head there we might find some open space te use to our advantage." A glance over to the buildings brought an expression of concern to the snake's eyes, his mind making him see shadows moving on the walls; while it certainly was within possibility at the moment, the Bioraptors hadn't made themselves known on the surface again yet. "This place is way too enclosed fer us te have good standing against him, or those vile little monsters of his."
Stoick nodded in agreement, whistling for Thornado before looking to the soldiers with them. "Well, you heard Jake; to the park, and quickly! Keep yer weapons trained in all directions, the ground included!"
They set out immediately once Spitfire was able to walk again, Eret and Stoick on their dragons as Kingsley and Jake flanked the foot soldiers. The shadows moved, and this time Jake's eyes were not deceiving him when the darkness erupted with sand abominations again. Shrieks and unholy whispers echoed off the buildings as they leapt for the group with blackened eyes depicting only death.
Gunfire rose up as the soldiers and allies fended off the attacks, moving slowly but purposefully down the street and toward the park, where the inhabitants of shadows would have little advantage.
Grasses and trees finally appeared ahead after only a minute or so, and the group broke into a run down the last legs of asphalt and out into an open meadow, slowing as the Bioraptors seemed to recognize the loss of their advantage. Everyone took a moment to breathe, staying alert as the monstrosities prowled the edges of the city and the thicker trees that lined the further edges of the park, but none seemed intent to make any further moves.
Not that it did any of the fighters any good; seconds later the very earth they stood on darkened several shades, and a swirling vortex of shifting blacks and violets rose up around the Berkians and soldiers. Thornado pushed off the ground, bellowing a roar at one side of the wall as Stoick pointed his borrowed M-16 rifle to the opposite direction.
Neither saw the massive inhuman hand extend out within their blind spot until it slammed them both back to the ground, barrier fields firing at the impact and Stoick sliding off Thornado's back from the force. The hand retracted as the vortex slowed and coalesced into a towering representation of the aptly-named Nightmare King.
"Put yourselves all in one spot so that you're easier to snuff out," he sneered. "I'll thank you for making my job easier by ensuring your deaths are quick." The figure's eyes glowed into existence and turned to Jake, scowling. "Except you; that blow should have been crippling, yet you're still slithering around to irritate me."
"Something I picked up from that other irritation that will be the end of you," Jake hissed, fangs unhinging and his tail rattling.
Pitch didn't waste any longer on conversation. He coalesced into a more physical form and brought up his hands, his infamous scythe blade forming at a far greater size than normal. A hail of bullets rained upward, but seemed to do no damage at all as the blade swung down.
Another black form did make an impact however, a savage roar reverberating around the clearing as it slammed into Pitch, the scythe vanishing as he went tumbling across the grass. The black-robed man coughed as he staggered to his feet, before turning to face the red-eyed dragon that flared his wings menacingly above Pitch.
"All of you, go!" Hawken yelled as he lunged with his mouth open, bearing rows of fangs. The villain dodged to the side just in time and reformed the scythe in his grip, squaring off with the Shadow Dragon.
The soldiers didn't hesitate, following the echoed orders of Stoick and Heimdall as they headed deeper into the park, hoping to run into some allies that were supposed to be stationed at the far end of the greenbelt. Behinds them, great gouges were scored into the earth and grass and bushes withered under anthracite fire.
Indeed, there were others set up in waiting at the distant side of the park, hidden amongst the trees.
Heather gazed through the autumnal foliage, waiting for either something to show up or for a signal from Sarah to move out. On either side of her, Windshear, Embron, and Twintail were hiding, the latter easily camouflaged by his broken pattern and duller colors and the Nightmare somehow still disguised amongst the bright leaves as well by his red and black hide.
"Heather! Heads up, Stoick and his company are heading your direction, Bioraptors on their tail!" Sarah called in over the com.
Heather smiled and nodded to the others of her company, two of them having received the message as well, and the four of them spread out and hunkered down around the western meadow.
A few minutes later, Heimdall broke through the trees first, followed by Freyja, Kingsley, Spitfire, and the others along with the soldiers still in their company. The trees around them shook and rattled as the Bioraptors swept down for the attack, but as the group crossed the open grass the monsters halted inexplicably, backing away and letting their quarry escape without so much as another shriek.
Heather's internal alarm bells immediately started ringing off the walls at that, and she pulled out the M-250 she'd secured, hopping off of Windshear and holding the war bow at the ready.
"Stoick, stay alert!' she called. "There's no way they're backing off for no reason!"
Stoick nodded his agreement, no stranger to fights and knowing that if one predator had left, something worse was behind. He held his gun up and signaled Jake, Kingsley, and Eret to scan the trees. Any life forms should theoretically have been visible through the infrared vision they were equipped with, unless cloaked by the same capacity as Ember's Shadowracer, so they would see the hidden threats first.
After a silent minute, the only things the three had detected were the three dragons still on guard in the trees, so Stoick called for a momentary breather, to catch their lost wind and regroup. Half a dozen soldiers posted themselves along the forest's edge alongside Embron and company as sentries, while the others figured out their next moves.
"Astrid, Cami, Sam, and their charges are tied down to the north with the wargs, Loki and Thuggory and their groups the same along the river, along with the Bioraptors," Stoick explained, unrolling the map of the metropolis they stood in to coordinate where they stood. "Odin and Sif are out near the edge of Manhattan; most of the other Asgards are fighting along the ocean front. Staten Island has been left relatively untouched compared to Long Island, but I know the US military troops were sent there to secure the coast."
"Firebomb attacks have been heavy all along the shoreline however," Freyja amended. "Most of the buildings there are rubble, so Malin's forces have been moving forward into those areas and setting up shielded bases. We might have what's needed between us to…Twintail, is something wrong?"
The Zippleback's two heads had lifted up and turned to scrutinize the forest, Embron and Spitfire soon turning their gazes the same way.
"We're not alone here anymore," Twintail said quietly, wings hooding out in an instinctive threat display and both heads bobbing up and down menacingly.
Stoick knew to trust the dragons' senses, so he gripped his rifle tightly. "Everyone on their feet," he ordered lowly, and brought a bead up to the trees, finger hovering over the trigger.
"AAAAAAHHHH!"
One of the sentry soldiers suddenly screamed in terror and pain as he appeared to levitate off the ground, before his torso collapsed inward under an immense pressure, holes ripping through him and blood spraying out. Moments later he dropped to the ground, dead, and Heather was the first to spot the bloodstained teeth before they faded again from visibility.
"It's an animal!" she barked. "Away from the trees, they're camouflaged! Jake!"
The rattlesnake was already whipping his head around frantically, trying to find something to track. "It's not giving off any body heat; I can't see it!" he snapped anxiously, raising his tail to fire but having no target to draw on.
Kingsley slithered forward, nearly unseen in the grass, his tongue flickering away. In the heat of the moment Jake had forgotten the other tracking ability that he had as a snake, but the cobra hadn't. Near the edge of the trees, he picked up something telltale, and reared up, hood flaring.
"It's a reptile!" he announced, coiling up and at the ready.
"Kingsley, get back here!" Heather yelled, but the cobra raised the tip of his tail to stay her words. Silence pervaded the field again, save the ever-so-slight vibrations Kingsley was beginning to pick up as well, moving closer; whatever it was, it though it was still the hunter.
A flicker of movement appeared and Kingsley immediately reacted, twisting to the side and striking forward with bared fangs at the camouflaged snout that had come down toward him. The assailant saw the mistake it had made a fraction of a second too late, as when it pulled its head back the cobra's fangs sank through tough scales and pierced flesh. A single tag, and Kingsley rapidly backed off, knowing the result to come of the toxin he'd delivered and that it was all it would take.
Cryptically patterned scales flushed into view as the creature roared in pain from the venom coursing through it. It was bipedal, with rows of short spikes and protrusions running down from the back of the head to the tail, two muscular arms bearing huge black claws, and powerful jaws lined with rows of crooked, blood-stained teeth.
The grayish toned creature swayed for a moment before the modified Piffleworm-style venom completed its job, all twenty-five feet of reptile falling still and crashing to the ground.
"It's a dinosaur," one of the soldiers commented quietly, looking on at the corpse.
"It's an Indominus," Kingsley amended, eyes widening from their formerly narrowed state as he turned toward the trees again, backing away.
"What's an Indominus?" Heather asked worriedly, finger on the trigger of her bow.
"A fictional dinosaur from a recent film," Embron answered, lines of fire beginning to ignite on his skin. "They can mask infrared, sense it as well as a rattlesnake, camouflage as well as a cephalopod or Changewing, and they're incredibly intelligent. This one…it's smaller than the original, meaning it's more maneuverable, and there's no way it's the only one Malin's set loose."
As if to prove his point, trees all around them rattled as something moved within them, and chilling growls and roars echoed between the trunks.
The ground shook and Freyja turned, swiping the sword and the blade lengthening in an energy arc in response as she slashed at a second of the reptiles, leaving a shallow gash across its flank but not enough to prevent it from slamming into her, barrier and all, and sending her across the grass with its tail before scattering the soldiers as it charged. A second later it faded from sight again, leaving them all shaken and split apart, and all the more vulnerable for it.
"We need another way to see them!" Heather yelled. "There has to be something they can't hide…"
Another roar echoed out as she trailed off, an idea sparking in her mind. Readying her bow and leveling it toward the trees, she yelled into her com, "We need the Night Furies in the western end of Central Park, now!"
Ember and Orha dove down, completely unseen to the ships below them as the Shadowracer flared his wings, preparing for the attack. The force fields shielding the ships were different from their own, requiring a great disruption to breach even at close range.
Ember crouched, and looked down at her dragon. Orhaganuz nodded, and dropped to just above the water. His rider readied her bow, and rolled off.
The second she left Orha's back, Ember faded into view and weapons trained on her falling form. She braced herself, and the second her feet hit the water it froze, crackling outward in a sheet that the young woman raced across, dodging the energy beams that came down at her and ignoring the bullets ricocheting off her own barrier field. Just ahead, unperturbed by the ship's field, the ice crashed into the side of her target and frost raced up the side of the metal.
"Orha, Amethyst, any time would be nice!" Ember yelled into the com.
"Yeah, we're coming!' Amethyst answered back, and seconds later thunder cracked following a pair of fiery explosions along the side of the vessel. The force field rippled and weakened momentarily, and Ember took her chance, firing an explosive arrow of her own and racing through the flaming hole left behind in the barrier.
Shouts rose up above her as Ember placed her hand against the frosted side of the ship. There were no handholds by which to climb up, but she didn't need one. Steam rose up as her hands glowed, the metal she pressed against turning red and warping under the extreme heat. Seconds later, a crack raced up, and Ember grabbed her sword and cleaved through the weakened metal, carving a makeshift doorway open that she quickly slipped through.
Inside, she rolled down the wall of the ship, halting for a moment on the floor as she listened for footsteps, or bells, or some other signal that would tell her either someone was coming or where she should go. A racket sounded above her somewhere, and she took off, slamming through a door and into a dim corridor, racing through and checking doorways and halls to look for a way up.
A handful of unarmed ship servicemen dove out of the way as Ember passed, but the warrioress paid them little heed. A better lit causeway ramp provided her an opportunity, and Ember skirted up the walkway, searching for something important to attack.
Finally, a locked door aroused the fire-haired woman's interest, and after she melted through the steel handle, the sight inside made her grin: the engine room, with growling pipes, cogs, electrical circuits, and all sorts of other tempting targets that were almost certain to cause mayhem if ruined even slightly.
"I hope Cami won't mind my using a page out of her book," Ember mused, grinning as she reached into the pocket on her side, pulling out a small explosive not unlike the tips of her more destructive arrows, but designed to be set off remotely by a detonation of said arrows. Ember slipped through the ruined door and planted the bomb at the far end of a circuit board, and then ran back to her exit, squeezing back out and preparing an arrow.
Something slammed into her side, and Ember gasped in surprise more than pain (her barrier had protected her from most of the blunt force) as her bow slipped from her hands and she hit the floor. She kicked hard, dislodging the assailant before rolling and standing up to get a good look at him. He was clearly a serviceman, mostly unarmed but carrying a radio which he quickly turned on and yelled into.
"We've got a breach on deck three, engine room! Backup needed now!"
A knife appeared in his hands as he stood up as well, the blade switching out as he lunged. Ember dodged with ease before grabbing the man by the arm holding the knife, twisting and ignoring his yell as he dropped the weapon.
"Sorry," she said reflexively, right before the man screamed in agony, his arm freezing under Ember's touch and the ice quickly spreading. Moments later Ember let go, looking away as the man-turned-popsicle fell backward, cracking upon hitting the metal causeway, and she grabbed up her bow again and pulled the arrow back into place. The door was still open, and she swung to take aim into the engine room. Letting out a breath, she let the arrow fly and immediately turned to run further up the ram, not looking back.
The reaction was instantaneous, the ship shuddering under foot as the explosion ripped through the engines and circuits, and the lights all around flickered and went out. Ember was unbothered, her hair heating up and glowing to provide light (and a disturbingly ethereal image to any more servicemen she ran past) as she dashed through another door and found a set of stairs leading topside. She raced up them, passing two more decks before reaching a door that appeared to lead outside.
As Ember lunged for the knob, the ship shuddered again as another explosion threw it off kilter, and it didn't right itself this time as the metal buckled underfoot. For a moment Ember lost her balance and a second of panic flashed through her, before she grinned and remembered: this was why she'd come aboard after all, and there were plans in place for unexpected holdups. Her attack had likely lowered the field's defenses, and Orha and Amethyst had taken advantage immediately.
"Orha, I'm coming out so you'd better be ready!" Ember yelled into her headset, before planting her feet on the sloping metal and yanking the door open, leaping out the door. Years of being on the run followed by the hectic life in Berk (voluntary and otherwise) kept her even-footed now on the corrugated and angled surface, giving her an edge over the arms-bearers around her who attempted to bring their weapons to bear on her.
A Piffleworm arrow whistled through the air, and pierced through three men before Ember reached the side of the ship. A shimmer appeared in the air ahead of her and she jumped, Orha catching her and the two speeding off immediately.
Ember glanced back as a familiar whistle built up, and Amethyst's diving form blew over the ship's deck, electricity crackling as the Night Fury fired one last blow that ripped through the ship and permanently sealed its fate. Amethyst then glided up next to Ember and Orha with a concerned expression.
"Hawken called in, Toothless and I are needed in the city," she explained. "You two might be of help as well, since this is apparently a threat with camouflage capabilities."
Ember grimaced, looking back at the fleet. "If we don't keep someone covering here, the jets will overtake the other riders. If we get a break somewhere I'll come help, but –LOOK OUT!"
The three of them scattered as a ball of fire erupted from one of the ships below, next to the vessel they'd sunk. It flew past and slammed into the growing border of rubble along the coast, followed by dozens more sailing through the air.
"Change of plans," Ember quipped, pressing her headset. "All riders near the fleet, retreat now and focus on the city! Heavy fire underway!" Lowering her hand, she glanced at Amethyst. "Let's go."
"Nara, come on!" Holly yelled urgently. "We've got a clear shot while he's distracted!"
"Not while the wargs are in the way; you'll never get close enough without one of them jumping up and bringing you both down!" Cami cut in, sweeping by and pulling out one of her special capsules (the gifts from Loki she now treasured). She and Stormfly dove toward a battalion of the monsters attempting to skirt around behind the defending infantry on foot, and the Viking threw the capsule down as hard as she could. Seconds later it exploded, knocking out or dazing the wargs. Nara flew down right behind her and Holly finished them with a sweeping hand full of Piffleworm darts.
"Fine; then what about the raptors?" she queried back. "Can any of you guys get in?"
"Tied up at the moment, Holly!" Silas replied first, and Holly glanced down to see him pinned under one of the creatures, both of them snapping desperately in an attempt to reach the other's neck without risking their own. Nara saw him too, and a quick snap of her tail sent a spike whizzing down, impaling the warg and allowing Silas to get up and drive his claws into another already leaping his way.
A flaring of her field drew Holly's attention down a side street, where troops were marching in and threatening to overtake the men with her mother and father. One of them had taken a shot at her, and Holly scowled as she leaned down.
"Nara, into that building there. We're gonna see if we can get in a good scare."
Nara nodded and flared her wings, banking hard and diving into a broken window, landing inside. Holly unclipped herself and slid off, running down the hall to another window overlooking the column.
"Holly! What do you think you're doing?" Nara hissed, following anxiously behind. Holly grinned and checked her gloves, before silently sliding the window open.
"Nothing much, I'm just going to be myself," she replied cheekily, and leapt out.
The soldiers below were not expecting what they were presented with an eye-blink later. Holly came hurtling down, rolled across the ground in a practiced move and standing up with a wild look on her face, yelling maniacally the whole time.
"YYAAAAAAHHHHH!"
A moment of stillness passed as the men tried to comprehend the sudden and unorthodox introduction of this young teenager that was now staring at them like she'd lost her mind. Just as suddenly, Holly's expression morphed in an instant to a perfectly enthusiastic, faux-sweet smile.
"Hi!" she exclaimed, reaching up with both hands and pulling something off her back. A flick of her wrists and the stacked throwing knives went sailing, impaling the men deep and causing chaos to erupt immediately. Holly leapt forward as gunfire rang out again, grabbing the knives she could retrieve with ease and sending them flying again before pulling out the sword in the scabbard at her side, sweeping it in a wide arc around her.
Nara showed up moments later, landing on top of several men and releasing a jet of flames through the column, fire rising high as it caught on their vests and the flammable bits of rubble around them.
"You're insane Holly!" the Nadder yelled.
"Duh!" the teenager yelled back, the manic grin already plastered on her face again. The sword in her hands spun and took out another three soldiers and several guns, cleaving through the metal stocks and barrels like they were made of warm butter.
Nara took flight again and put her claws down, raking the ranks and grabbing one soldier straight off the ground to throw into his comrades. Then she turned and squawked in alarm: a warg was maneuvering down the alley toward Holly, right in the teen's blind spot. The dragon dove, just a little too far when the mutant wolf leapt, jaws wide open.
Holly spun and sent a dart flying, impaling the warg in the forehead mid-jump and sliding to the side with an almost unnatural grace as it collapsed forward under its own momentum. Her attention flicked toward the other end of the battle for a moment, flashes of the other present fights for dominance catching her eye before she went back to her own focus.
Indeed, the struggle between Astrid, Zipeau, and their shared opponent was fiercely underway. Shen, being a bird and additionally a tactician of war, was light on his feet and fast, calculating. Astrid was gifted with speed and agility, Zipeau with technological genius and the know-how to use his own weapons, but the white peacock continued to stay a set match for the pair, even with bullets flying through the air around them.
The bird swung his glaive and parried the Mysteel sword in Astrid's hand in an expert move that flung the blade directly into the path of Zipeau's own energy-wielding baton, making the two of them stumble just long enough for Shen to spin his weapon and cut down another attempted shot from Sam across the intersection.
"We can go about this all day long," Shen drawled, balancing his weapon in his wing as he carefully watched his opponents.
"And we will if we have to," Astrid snapped back in reply. Her axe spun and caught the tip of the glaive, and she moved with the swing, turning and landing a kick to the center of the staff, making Shen stagger back. Zipeau stepped in at the opening and swung his baton down, the energy blade flashing out and cutting open a gash in Shen's until then still-immaculate robe. Unsurprisingly, the feathers underneath were laced with armor, but Zipeau didn't hesitate, continuing in his momentum and spinning to bring the blades lining his tail down.
Shen reacted quickly, dropping backward off the small pile of rubble they had stood on and grabbing the dinosaur's tail between the blades, throwing Zipeau smack into Astrid. Both of their fields flared as they collided, preventing serious injury and making sure they stayed on their feet, but it gave Shen the opportunity he needed to get up and spread his wings and tail wide, leaping upward and gliding through the broken window of a nearby building.
"Dammit!" Astrid spat sharply, picking herself up and sprinting toward the building. "Zipeau, come on! We can't let him get away!"
The Stenonychosaurus grunted as he reoriented himself, swinging his arm out and taking out an incoming warg with another of his exploding projectiles before following. "Won't he have the upper hand inside?" he queried concernedly.
"Only if we let him!" Astrid quipped back, already slamming the hilt of her axe into a window and leaping through.
It was an average run-of-the-mill office building, darkened thanks to the ruined electrical system, and echoing from the battle outside. Astrid slipped along the desk cubicle-lined corridor to a doorway marked with a stairwell image, yanking it open and treading as lightly as she could up the steps. Zipeau came in behind her, loading the arm-cannons in preparation. They turned the corner, coming up to the door entering the next floor, and Astrid held her axe out in front of her as she kicked it open.
Silence met them, only the sight of Thorn watching worriedly outside the window. The Nadder tipped her head upward, and Astrid quickly scaled the next flight of stairs, kicking that door open as well. A single metal-edged white feather greeted her as it floated to the ground, but not the owner of said feather.
A loud call of a peacock sounded from above, and both Viking and dinosaur ran to the broken window and glanced up just in time to see Shen take flight from several floors further up, gliding with his great fan of feathers down the street just under the fog and disappearing around the corner. Several incoming battalions of wargs followed suit, and Astrid groaned in frustration.
"Thorn! Come on, we need to catch him!' she called, and the Nadder drifted over in preparation to receive Astrid and Zipeau on her back before Sarah's voice sounded a negative on the move.
"Shen's gone out of functioning camera range Astrid, we've lost track of him. Help the others keep driving the remaining wargs back, and we'll keep looking to see if we can find him."
"He can't be that far off though, and he's got a bunch of the ugly wolves following him!"
"There are wolves well to the south of you too, so that won't help narrow things down. And Hawken's tied up in Central Park with Pitch so we need to keep tabs on the bordering battles like yours, so he doesn't have distractions."
"I'm heading in!" Holly now yelled over the com lines. "I'll provide backup for my brother, everything else is mostly holding here as long as Astrid comes back down!"
"Holly, no!' Astrid yelled. "Pitch is"-
"Pitch isn't expecting a thirteen-year-old teenager with perfect aim to show up when he's already fighting Hawken. He'll focus completely on my brother and I might be able to get a shot in. I'm heading in and I have Nara to back me."
Astrid jumped on Thorn anyway, Zipeau grabbing hold behind her, and they turned to try and halt the exit of the unpredictable teenager, but Holly and Nara had already sped off through the concrete jungle and vanished in the fog; with the head start they had, the other Nadder was never going to catch up either.
Astrid groaned and directed Thorn downward again, the two passengers leaping off onto the backs of a pair of enemy soldiers that had come in to fight with the wargs. Zipeau swung his baton, clearing a path just enough for Astrid to slip by a particularly tight spot, and the latter headed for Sam and Denise.
"I'm sure you just heard, but Holly's run off to try and help fight Pitch," she explained, her axe whiling and keeping space so they could talk. The girl's parents were unsurprisingly not all that enthusiastic about the news.
"What?!" Denise exclaimed. "That monster is nearly a match for our son, let alone"-
"I know!" Astrid cut in forcefully, before wincing. "Sorry. I know, but you guys I am certain know what you own daughter is like. God forbid she managed to gain Camicazi's recklessness"-
"I heard that!" the other blonde yelled as she blazed by, Stormfly barreling through several of the mutant wolves as her scales blushed midnight blue and opening up a space for the US infantry to fire.
"I know!" Astrid yelled back, before turning to the Carlton parents again. "Anyway, but she's not stupid, and like we've seen she does seem near-incapable of missing her targets. Stay on her frequency, and if something's really going wrong we'll all try to head in to cover her. I know Heather's nearby that region, and the Night Furies will be soon as well. Something about Malin's version of the Indominus if Sarah's relay earlier was correct."
The warrioress cut off her conversation and slammed an armored elbow back into the snout of a charging warg, staggering the beast before she turned around and thrust her sword forward, gutting it. In a sudden, revived flurry of battle, Sam swung his AK-47 past her and took out a second leaping in behind the first, before pointing his arm along the side of the building they were against.
"Let's get around the crowd, look for a new vantage point on this situation. Astrid?"
Astrid grinned and somersaulted away, axe flying out to clear a pathway for them to follow. Sam shook his head in morbid amusement at the display before leveling his weapon outward again to keep Astrid's path cleared as they all marched toward a clearer section of street, hoping to finally gain a real upper hand in this fight.
A/N- It's not over yet either...we haven't even finished the first day.
What do you think? Who's going to give, and where? More importantly, who's going to live to talk about it? Let me know your thoughts, predictions, etc. in your reviews! And don't forget, I like to hear thoughts about the original poems, and whether or not you guys are picking up on any of the symbols and references spread throughout the books.
Until next time, HawkTooth out!
