A/N: I was told that it might be better if I would get clear of all the abbiverations & stuff at the beginning, so here they are:

MBT: Main Battle Tank

FUBAR: F-ed up beyond all recognition ;)

Reactive armour: wiki/Reactive_armour

Anything else not clear, let me know. But enough of me now, onwards!

Chapter 3.

He saw the scene quite well from his current position. The long convoy of trucks and armoured vehicles slowly came to a halt, as the vanguard noticed the hastily thrown broken tree logs on the road. Two soldiers crawled out of their APC, carefully moving closer to the obstacle, weapons ready, keeping a lookout for anything suspicious. Probably they wouldn't expect to encounter resistance tens of kilometres behind the frontlines, but they tried to be sure.

Not that it could help them.

The crosshair slowly settled on the helmet of one gasmask wearing soldier. Walther let out a deep breath to empty his lungs and somewhat calm his hammering heart. His index finger slowly touched the trigger, ready to press down.

An almost inaudibly low and short pop escaped the barrel of the silenced M14, and his target collapsed. The other one got less than two more seconds before joining his comrade.

"Scratch two. Changing position." Walther mumbled into his radio.

Moments later, a bright blue fireball struck the APC at the front of the column as it tried to reverse. Walther saw the remote controlled machinegun turret flying far off, as the whole vehicle blew apart, the flying debris only narrowly missing the flatbed truck behind it. Right after it, another plasma blast hit the APC at the end of the line, blocking the path backwards, too.

"Call it even." Lohengrin's deep growl came as a response.

"Nice job!" Walther huffed as he ran downhill, and jumped behind a bush, in order to find a different firing position. While he was running, he saw opening hatches on the other APCs, but before he could say anything, he began to hear an intensifying whistling sound.

He looked up to the cloudy sky, and vaguely saw a black shadow diving at breakneck speed, letting loose three smaller fireballs. The explosions shattered the ground and the vicinity became filled with cries of anger and desperation as the Fury disappeared into the night again.

"Armoured vehicles down. Multiple foot mobiles scattered around and trying to regroup."

"Great." Walther hissed into the microphone. "Pick off whom you can, then maintain overwatch, I'd prefer to stay out of nasty surprises."

"Copy that."

With one, fluid movement, Walther removed the scope from his rifle, and fixed his bayonet at the tip of the barrel. He cringed at the sight of it, but sometimes, there are no other options left. He ran up to the flaming wreckage of the first personnel carrier, and spotted four enemy soldiers rushing forward. He immediately raised his rifle, shooting twice before jumping behind cover. One of his shots missed, the other one smashed the plexiglass of a gas mask, making its owner hit the ground to never move again.

For a moment, Walther was glad he could jump behind the wreckage, the leftover armour plates deflected the rain of fire he received from the COFNOR soldiers. He knew he had to come up with something because he won't last long against three, so reached towards his hip, until his hand found a flashbang. He grabbed it, turned towards them from behind cover, removed the safety pin and threw it where he suspected the soldiers' position were. He then immediately went prone, hands covering his ears.

Immediately after the detonation, he got up and rushed towards the blind and disoriented soldiers, shooting them in the chest one by one. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and examine the situation. He could faintly hear a few screams, but otherwise Lohengrin's work was very silent.

Someone stuck his head out of the cargo compartment of the truck next to him, looking around with a horrified expression.

"Stay in the truck and keep your head down!" Walther shouted "We'll get rid of the enemy and move you to safety!"

The scared man immediately pulled back, and Walther began to move along the convoy, trying to find more soldiers. Other than a few bloody spots, he couldn't see anything. Stopping at a different truck, he reached for his earpiece.

"Lohe-"

Suddenly, a soldier who was hiding behind the truck, threw himself at him, screaming inarticulately and waving a knife. Only his fast reflexes saved Walther's life, as he grabbed his rifle and managed to lift it up, catching the upcoming slash with the rifle's stock. The fanatic's leg sprung forward almost immediately, kicking Walt in the stomach, making him fall backwards to the ground. His attacker followed him, trying to add his weight into the stab, but Walt let go of his rifle and managed to get a grip on the knife-holding hand, stopping the blade only a few centimetres from his eye. He groaned as he tried to twist his enemy's wrist to the side, and swung his left elbow to hit the soldier in the face. The knife just barely missed his face and etched the road under them as they rolled to the right, but the black-wearing soldier let go of the knife's handle with one hand, and punched him in the face, right under his eye. A pained yowl escaped Walther, as they both rolled back, and the soldier raised the knife for strike, when...

Something huge and black swung into the picture, hitting the fanatic in the head and slamming it to the truck's side. The man dropped his knife instantly, and ceased every movement as he lost consciousness.

Walther spent a few seconds lying on the ground, trying to catch his breath before looking up and recognizing Lohengrin, who still held the enemy soldier against the truck with his tail.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah..." Walther panted "I...I'll be fine. Thanks."

"No problem." the dragon nodded, and turned towards the pinned soldier.

"Lohen, wai-"

Before he could have finished his sentence, Lohengrin's clawed paw slashed the neck of the unconscious soldier. Walther's eyes grew wide as he witnessed the execution.

"He was neutralized already!" he shouted.

Lohengrin quietly sat down, and began to lick the blood off his paw. He only spoke up as he glanced over Walt, and noticed his upset expression.

"And?"

"And?! We could have interrogated him, or-"

"I don't care."

"What?!" Walther asked in shock.

Lohengrin stared into his eyes, and Walther immediately understood that the Night Fury is just as upset as he was.

"I'm going to show them the same mercy they showed to my kin." he growled menacingly, then stood up and began to walk away. While the two of them were talking, the civilians began to slowly crawl out of the trucks, nervously looking around.

"Excuse me." a man approached Walther as he stood up as well "Are you from the United Nations?"

"Yes." Walt nodded "We're here to rescue you."

"Can I ask where the rest of your unit is?" the man asked curiously.

"You're looking at it. This is an improvised operation. And I'm going to need your help."

"Errm... Mine?"

"Yes, yours. Go help me check all these trucks, and round up drivers for each one. We have to get out of here before enemy reinforcements arrive."

"O-okay." the man stuttered, and began to run along the convoy. Walther picked up his rifle from the ground, and headed back towards the flaming wreckage of the first APC, only to find Lohengrin sitting not far from it and staring into the fire. He saw the dragon's earplate flick as he approached him, and as he got close, Lohengrin spoke up in a much calmer way than before.

"I'm sorry if seeing me killing members of your kin makes you feel uncomfortable." his forepaws flexed, claws scraping the asphalt. "But don't ask me to be kind to those who murdered a third of my clan, destroyed my home and tore my family apart."

Walther let out a deep sigh as he reached the dragon, and put a palm on his neck.

"I..." he began "I guess I would do something similar if I would be in your place..."

"Let's hope you'll never have to."

"Alright. We need to figure out a way how to push the wreck out of the way so the trucks can move."

"I think I have a solution for that." the dragon said flatly "Get back."

They both took a few steps backwards from the remains of the APC, then Lohengrin took a deep breath, and shot a fireball at it. The impact caused the burning chassis to flip up and land on its side, in the ditch beside the road.

"Nice." Walther grinned "Let's get the rest out of the way, then I can shepherd the flock forwards. With some luck, we can reach our lines before dawn."

"And with even more luck" Lohengrin commented "we might be able to come up with an explanation for OPCOM about why we decided to screw orders."

"Now that's gonna be a tricky." Walther shook his head "But let's deal with one problem at a time."

Lohengrin looked down as he soared high above, eyeing the column of vehicles under him. With all the headlights turned on, and each following the other one closely, they reminded him of a snake made out of tiny light pearls, slowly crawling forward. Walther managed to find drivers for every truck, and when they went to remove the other obstacles from the road; they managed to collect some leftover equipment which might come useful later.

Not everything went smoothly though, as they had an incoming transmission from OPCOM requesting a status update of the convoy, and they were not exactly pleased when they heard about the hijack, to put it mildly. But at least they promised air support, that's something.

The rightfulness of their actions was an interesting dilemma for Lohengrin, and he found himself constantly thinking about it while he slowly circled around the convoy, keeping an eye out for possible enemy reinforcements. He was certain that helping innocent people escape from captivity is the right thing, but what if their hasty actions just ruined a possibly better planned rescue mission? He swallowed, as he thought that maybe this wasn't the best idea he'd ever came up with, but it was too late for regrets. And it was hard to feel any regret when he saw all the endlessly relieved faces.

A tickling sensation at his ears interrupted his musing, and his eyes ran through the dark landscape. The cloudy winter night helped a lot to stay invisible, but it also made harder to spot anything. After some time, he decided to lengthen his patrol course, and head further northeast. As he turned, he could see the outskirts of a town to the left, and a relatively small village right ahead. Beyond which, the land was scattered with groves and meadows. Until a feint black line approached him.

The highway. Lohengrin flapped his wings rapidly, to gain more altitude. As he got closer, he could now faintly make out vague black shapes of vehicles.

"Walther." he growled into the radio "I've got movement on the highway, about twelve clicks to the east, closing in!"

"Alright, we're doing good. Go along on this road, then turn right towards Lübben at the intersection." Walther instructed the driver next to him. He sat in the cabin with his tablet on his lap, looking at the map and trying to figure out the fastest way to get back into UN controlled territory. OPCOM may have promised air support, but it is going to take some time till it becomes available. In the meantime, the best thing they can do is run like hell.

"Are we going into the city?" the driver asked.

"Yeah, then follow the road L49 south." Walt confirmed "We will probably have to leave the roads before crossing into UN territory to avoid any checkpoints, but that'll be later.

"I don't know how to say thank you, both of you." the driver said. "God knows where those maniacs would have taken us..."

"We're not out of it yet. But you can by me a beer once we're in safety." Walther grinned.

The driver chuckled too, and he was about to say something when Walther's radio went online. The incoming growls and screeches didn't make sense to the driver, but it was more than informative to the soldier next to him.

"Walther. I've got movement on the highway, about twelve clicks to the east, closing in!"

"Copy that, do you have any details?" he replied tensely, as he scrolled the map with his fingers to get to the area Lohen mentioned.

"Ten plus vehicles. Can't specify anything else from this distance, I'm heading to take a closer look right now."

"Alright, but be careful!" Walther warned "If they are coming for us, they will surely have some kind of flak with them."

"Noted. I'm seeing a nice batch of clouds to hide, anyway."

"Copy that. See what you can find and get back so we can figure out something."

"Roger."

Walther stayed quiet for a time, despite the nervous looks the driver was giving to him.

"Are we in trouble?" he finally asked.

"Not yet. But there's a chance we will be." Walther said darkly.

Lohengrin went above cloud level as he flew towards the previously spotted enemy vehicles, and purposefully veered to the right, hoping to fly past them, turn around, and examine them on his way back. The tickling sensation in his ears intensified, but he couldn't tell why, he surely didn't feel anything like that during the convoy attack. He shook his head, and decided to concentrate on the enemy vehicles. He dived under the clouds to see where he is now compared to them.

He was roughly four kilometres from the column on the highway. He quickly recognized eleven tanks moving fast, ten in two lines beside each other, and a loner one slightly behind them. Lohengrin was about to wonder at the strange formation, when he realized that the turret of the last tank is turning towards him. Now he saw that it's a completely different vehicle than the rest. Its turret was shaped like a block, with two horizontal tubes on either side, and...

Realization struck him like a lightning, and he quickly folded his right wing and flapped with the left to throw himself into a flat inverted spin towards the ground. For a half-second his left wing showed surface towards the enemy tank, and while his desperate manoeuvre was enough to narrowly dodge the most of the raining high-calibre autocannon fire, he felt a terrible burning feeling coming from his wing. Barely maintaining control of erratic the spin, he turned his head to see what happened.

He counted four bloody holes in his wing, each the size of a human's fist. He gritted his fangs and twisted himself to face the rapidly approaching ground, and flared his tailfins, aiming to get into a rapid climb. But as soon as he tried to stretch his wings, a wave of pain exploded in his left, as the fast air tore through the holes. He clamped his jaw shot to suppress his roar of pain, and quickly folded his wing, repeating the same falling-spinning manoeuvre.

Then all of a sudden, his radio went online.

"Lohen, I see the tracers, what on Earth-"

"I'M A BIT PREOCCUPIED!" Lohengrin roared, as he narrowly dodged the next volley of fire. He was running out of altitude at a worrying pace, a few more seconds and he wouldn't have the space he needed to manoeuvre out of the path of oncoming fire.

Overcoming his dread, he opened his wings again, and pulled himself out of the crazy spin, levelling off. Doing his best to disregard the obscene amount of pain radiating from his injured wing, he let loose three fireballs in quick succession, then went into a dive towards the forest next to the highway.

The fireballs tore the anti-aircraft tank into pieces, pillars of flames emerged towards the sky, sending flaming metal pieces flying in a thirty metre radius.

Lohengrin's eyes grew wide in horror as the trees got bigger too quickly to avoid a crash. He shut his eyes, and moved his wings to hug his body, as he tumbled through the foliage back-first. Twigs and branches scraped his scales, and a sharp pain exploded in his spine as he hit a small tree, effectively breaking it into two. He slammed into the ground, and rolled a few metres before he finally settled, lying on his aching back, and panting wildly.

He quickly flexed his hind legs, and much to his relief, they moved as they should, so at least he escaped vertebral fracture. As he twitched his ears, he saw that somehow he managed not to lose his radio, either.

"Waaalt..." he groaned, while he rolled onto his belly, trying to get on fours.

"Lohengrin, what's the situation?!"

The Night Fury finally managed to struggle up on his feet. Once he heard a charming abbreviation fitting for occasions like this, but his currently shocked mind needed a few seconds to find it.

"FUBAR!" he panted into the microphone.

Walther climbed out to the roof of the driver's cabin, and constantly gazed at the sky, dearly hoping to spot a returning Night Fury. The truck wasn't going especially fast, as they needed to keep the convoy together. A while later, he did manage to spot a barely visible black patch on the sky, but something was very unusual by the way it flew.

"Stop the truck!" Walther shouted, and stamped on the roof a few times. The vehicle slowly came to a halt, and so did the others behind it.

As the dragon got close, the soldier saw how strangely he's tilting to the side, making his flight ungraceful and erratic. He jumped off of the truck, and ran ahead towards the Night Fury.

Lohengrin landed in front of him, nowhere near as elegantly as he used to. The dragon cringed and huffed, and because the truck's headlights illuminated the road, he saw dark droplets dripping on the asphalt.

"Lohen!" he exclaimed, and kneeled down in front of him so their eyes can be in level "What happened to you."

The dragon looked at him with his face bearing a world of pain, and heaved:

"Tanks... Ten of them on the highway, escorted by a Gepard. I..." he stopped for a moment, swallowed then went on "I took the Gepard out but not before..."

He unfurled his left wing, to show the four bloody holes torn into the skin.

"Holy crap!" Walther hissed, then gently grabbed the dragon's face with both hands. "Listen... I'll get you outta this. You just have to get on a truck, then we can outrun those bastards...

"No we can't, and you know it." Lohengrin whispered darkly "They are coming faster than we can move. I can't fly too well, you don't have anti-tank weapons-"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Walther stood up "But it's not going to help much against ten MBTs... any ideas?"

"That air support would be nice." Lohengrin groaned.

Walther grabbed his radio.

"Checkmate, this is Echo Seven-Niner, do you copy?"

"Solid copy, Seven-Niner." the response came a few seconds later.

"We have two platoons of MBTs converging on our location, requesting immediate support!"

"Err... we have ground forces heading your way, and air support will be in position soon. ETA: thirty minutes."

"Acknowledged. Echo out." Walther lowered his hand, and mumbled to himself: "Sounds pretty close."

"Send the civvies forward to meet our guys, and we play rear-guard until air support is online." Lohengrin thought out loud.

"That'll probably be the safest for them." Walther nodded, and swallowed tensely. "This is going to be a wild ride."

The red taillights of the last flatbed disappeared pas the curve of the road, leaving one soldier and one Night Fury alone. They were at the outskirts of a small village which was split into two by the road they had to follow south to reach their lines. Before leading, they unloaded whatever military hardware from the trucks which they collected previously, and Walther was nervously eyeing the laughable stockpile they've had.

"Three frag grenades, two flashbangs, a Carl Gustav with four HEAT rounds and another four HE, which is pretty much useless... Some landmines would be great, or a Javelin, or-"

"Or ten more Night Furies, so we could make short work of them." Lohengrin sighed. "Now that we're done with the wishes, what should we actually do? Throw stones at them?"

"Okay, okay, let me think. Let's see... MBTs coming without any support, so they were probably hastily rerouted here to catch us. Because they don't have infantry, they will probably try to go around population centres, as urban territory is great for ambushes... If I were the one leading them, I would leave the road here." He pointed to a spot not far from them. "This path goes around the village, and the tree line offers some cover against flanking fire... I'll rig the HE shells and place them on the road. We'll take up positions in those buildings on the western corner of the village, and wait for them. When they arrive, they'll probably leave the road, right where we want them, and hit them in the sides with everything we've got."

Lohengrin watched closely as Walther carefully placed the shells at spots which he thought the tanks would use, then reluctantly allowed him on his back and ran towards the village. It was completely darkened and silent; the residents were probably evacuated, much to their luck. After encountering a locked door, Walt simply kicked it in, and opened all windows once they were in. The room which looked towards the forest gave them a good enough observation point to see when the enemy tanks will come.

Walther put down the rocket launcher against the wall, and settled down next to it. Lohengrin also laid down, resting his head on his forelegs.

"How's your wing?" Walt asked.

"It'll take a few weeks to heal. If we stay alive for that long, of course."

"Maybe Doctor Miller back at the base can do something with you... she patched me up quite a few times, she's a real miracle-worker."

"I..."

The dragon's earplates twisted, and Walther followed his gaze towards the forest.

The tanks were rolling towards them, one after another. Then they slowed down and stopped, just as Walther predicted. He quickly grabbed his launcher, and moved into a firing position. Lohengrin ran out of the house, and jumped on the roof, climbing up carefully, and peeking over the top.

"Stay behind cover, we don't want them to notice us just yet." Walther's calm voice sounded from the radio.

The soldier watched as the tank slowly turned, and left the asphalt for the dirt road, showing its left side to them.

"FIRE!" Walther shouted.

Lohengrin quickly stuck his head out of cover, and let loose a fireball. It flew right into the side of the tank, and exploded. But as the flames and smoke died away, he shockingly noticed that the tank was mostly unharmed.

Lohengrin's jaw dropped.

"What in the name of-"

"Reactive armour!" Walther exclaimed, and the Carl Gustav thundered on his shoulder, the rocket propelled grenade left the barrel, flew towards the same tank Lohengrin hit, and slammed into its side. It must have penetrated the ammunition racks, as the following gigantic explosion sent the turret flying off, and landing somewhere dozens of metres away.

"FUCK YEAAAH!" he grinned, but the grin quickly melted from his face as he noticed nine 125mm gun barrels turning towards him.

"RUN! Runrunrunrun-"

Lohengrin jumped off the roof probably a second before the tanks replied to Walther's shot with a roaring volley fire. Explosive rounds tore into the structure of the building, tearing off the roofing, crushing girders like toothpicks, toppling walls, reducing inetrior furniture into shattered pieces, fragments of glass and broken tiles flying everywhere.

The explosions caught Walther as he ran out of the house, the blast wave picking him up and throwing into the neighbour's garden. Lohengrin landed a bit more gracefully beside him.

"Okay, this didn't work out well." Lohengrin groaned "What now?"

"Gah... I feel like I broke every single bone of mine..."

"Welcome to the club." the dragon growled sourly. The roaring of diesel engines began to come closer. "Where the hell is that triple-damned air sup-"

"Echo Seven-Niner, this is Sledgehammer. We're on station and awaiting coordinates."

The short sentence brought new strength into Walther's tired limbs, as he rocketed to his feet, and ran towards the corner of the former building, to peek out on the tanks.

"Sledgehammer, you're our guardian angel today! Targets heading west southwest, half a click from my position, danger close! Nine MBTs, all hostile. Bring down the sky on them!"

"Solid copy Echo, keep your head down."

"LOHEN! GET DOWN!" Walther screamed, and hit the deck immediately. Lohengrin crouched low as well, covering his ears with his forelegs, and shutting his eyes tight.

At first, he heard a series of distant "poof" sounds, and another, bigger one. For several seconds it was almost nightmarishly quiet, Lohengrin wondered what sort of pathetic bombs they were using. Then the ground began to tremble underneath him, and wild explosions tore away the darkness, they were bright enough to notice from behind his closed eyelids. Lohengrin felt his ribs vibrating as the onslaught continued, more and more detonations came, until...

Silence. The last explosion died off, and Lohengrin slowly raised his head, to take a look at the tank column.

Except that the tanks were nowhere to be found, along with the tree line next to them, and half of the forest behind them. As he looked up to the sky, he saw nothing at all, which would explain what just happened.

"Walt...?" he asked hoarsely "What the hell was that?"

Walther slowly sat up, and shot a tired grin towards the Night Fury.

"Gunship. AC-130 Spectre. Basically, a transport plane with a bunch of cannons sticking out of its side, design to ruin the day of any poor bastards unlucky enough to be caught in its crosshairs."

"Heh... clever." Lohengrin smirked, before lying down on his flank. "And now if you'll excuse me, I'll wait for the reinforcements to pick us up."

"That's actually..." the soldier sat down beside him "a really nice idea."

The reckless operation of Walt and Lohen turned out to be a huge success, and its propaganda value was even more significant. But this victory was because of capital insubordination, so Colonel Mertens, Walther's commanding officer had to make a choice: either he tries and dismisses the two from active service and risk public uproar, or... he'll figure something else out.

Two weeks later Walther and Lohengrin found themselves working hard. They had been assigned to dig a multitude of holes for a very "specialised and important purpose." as put by the Colonel. They hadn't rested in hours and still had dozens left to complete. The soldier dug quietly with his shovel while Lohen, inside their pit, tore at the ground flinging dirt and stones eveywhere. The Night Fury had not been timid about expressing his opinion on the matter.

"This is the most arbitrary crap I've ever had to do." he fumed. "Penalised for saving a hundred civilians... you humans are such idiots sometimes."

"Sometimes?" Walther asked.

"Okay then, let me correct myself."

"Please don't!"

A chuckle escaped Lohen, which he quickly hid to reinforce his bad mood, then took a look at the hole they were digging.

"What the heck are we doing, anyway?"

"Digging?" Walther asked back.

"I mean, what is it for? This looks like a strange place for cover..."

"Oh, umm... you don't want to know."

"Actually, I do." the dragon stuck his head out of the hole "You've been hiding this from me the whole time. So I'll ask again: what is this hole used for?!"

Now the soldier looked quite nervous.

"They're just, in case we... you know... get flanked from here. Safety first, hey?" he replied unconvincingly.

"Then why do we have a perfectly fine and operational barricade fifty metres away?"

His plan foiled, Walt looked guiltily down at the ground.

"Crap, uhm... you know... basically, in field camps like this... the soldiers can't afford to look for bushes to... do their business, so..."

"WHAT?! WE WERE DOING SHITHOLES THE WHOLE TIME?!"

"It's a latrine, Lohen, be professional!"

"I'll give you something professional you bare-arsed ape!" the dragon roared, and Walther threw his shovel far away as he began to run for his life, laughing madly in the process.

A/N: Phew! A hefty bit of excitement, don't you think? :D

As always, my dear readers, please tell me what you think. It helps me a lot to go forward.

Until next time!

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