"I'm very thankful that you joined with the army, but…"
"What happened to the previous mission doesn't matter anymore, Your Highness. Right now, my duty is to protect you and the people of the country."
Due to the constant teleportation to them, Henrietta and Wales were not surprised at all when the familiar circle appeared. However, they're taken back after seeing only Louise standing before them when the spell was completed. After a quick greetings, the Void Mage then explained the current situation and voiced out her desire to help protecting the two. Though the Royals were very hesitant to let her fight, they knew her loyal to her country and to the Princess. Besides, they had a suspicious idea about Louise's familiar purposely letting his summoner be near them in order to keep her safe.
After marching with Tristain's army, they reached the area just outside of Siesta's village. From there, they can already see the flying ships of Reconquista heading into the land of their nation. The scouts beforehand have evacuated the civilians to safety zones, so now they're going to fight with full strength. Henrietta then orders Griffon squad members to lure the enemy's air units, while the other knights are to reach the under of the ships since they can't be shot at that location.
Wales notices Louise raising her wand and aiming at the enemies. He knows the girl being powerful, but… "Can you hit the enemies from here?"
"I don't have the guts to hurt people, Your Highness." That causes him to raise his eyebrows. "That doesn't mean I can't help. Explosion."
The Prince in disguise returns his eyes back to the battlefield, more likely where she's aiming at, and sees one of the enemy's Dragon Knights getting startled as a random something burst on his right. The other knights also get into the same situation, giving Tristain's Griffon knights to get close to them. Looking down to the chivalry below, he notices some sorts of transparent purple barrier surrounding them. When the chivalry is close enough, the enemy ships start firing their cannons down to stop their advances. However, if the shots don't actually connect to any of the soldiers, none of the troops are staggered by the nearby impact, only surprised.
"That war history really helped…"
"Excuse me, miss Valliere?"
"It's nothing, Your Highness."
After a few minutes of combat, Henrietta looks at the sky and notices a strange phenomenon: "…Where is that one come from?"
Louise takes a moment to look up just in time to see the sky turn red, and a red object is now floating next to the two moons of Halkeginia. "…He has arrived."
"Uh… partner, I'm not saying that you couldn't fight those ships on your own... but who's controlling this if you're fighting on board?" Derf questions as the familiar casts the easy-to-recognize omen on the sky.
"…You can."
"HOW? You have hands!"
"Which are using this..." He taps on the control wheel he replaced in for the handle. "To steer the plane. I can replace it with you."
"…Partner, are you joking?" While the idea of flying this amazing 'dragon', Derf doubts that he could do it on his own.
"I'm not. Here you go." To the sword's surprise, he completely displaces the wheel away and stabs Derf in the place, all in half of a second.
"Partner! That's too…" The sword's next words don't come out, and Wisdom now grabs his handle and continues controlling the plane. A minute later, Derf speaks up with a grunt: "That's rude."
"Sorry for the sudden action. Now, can you move on your own?"
"Well, I'm still learning. Give me a moment… Damn, this is complex… You put a spell on this so I can control it better, don't you?"
"Yes. Take your time. Now…" Releasing one hand from the sword, he places it on the 7.7 mm's trigger while steering the plane so the target system is aiming at one of the Dragon knights. "It's dragon raining time."
Due to the new red moon, everything except Wisdom has their sights nearly black-out. The moment the target's dead-on, he pulls the trigger of the gun, releasing two volleys of bullets that hit both the dragon and the rider, shredding them to pieces. The flash of the shots is the only source that the enemy squads can use to try to aim their dragon's fire at it, but the movement of a plane is way too fast to be shot by a slow fireball. Meanwhile the Griffin squad of Tristain makes a guess of where their enemies are given by where the flashes are travelling to and starts firing their own spells at the area.
"Damn, it's shaking a lot!" Derf shouts, though with an excited tone. "It feels better than the normal close combat fights!"
"That's modern war for you." Continue pulling the trigger, he observes the other parts of the sky and sees a lot of explosions in the air with traces of a certain element. He then steers the plane to avoid a fireball from the right, where the weapon system can't fire at if not aimed. When he can see where the attacker is, he immediately summons one of his pistols and aims directly at the person's head and pulls the trigger, instantly killing the knight. "Not good enough." He then looks up and feels the effect of his spell slowly runs out…
"Partner, I think I see a different dragon up ahead." Connected to the plane, Derf now 'kinda' has the vision of the head plus the weapon's target system. "Want me to fully control this thing?"
The familiar turns to see what that dragon could be… and sees the person he has encountered before. "…Don't pull the gun trigger and just keep on avoiding the attacks. Leave the rest to me."
"Partner, you really think I can do the first thing? Ha!" Derf laughs at Wisdom's dry joke, but then he continues with a serious tone: "Be careful."
"I won't lose to him. The other one, however…"
…
He sees him. The accursed familiar of his former fiancée.
Wardes and the mysterious woman have noticed the arrival of the strange dragon. However, before any of them or the generals could mutter an order to look out for it, a red moon suddenly appears on the sky with its light darkening the world. Before his eyes could adjust to the change, the woman pulled him down just in time for something fly over his head and hit someone behind him, and the Wind mage turned his head back to see the person on the floor with his head blasted. The two stand up to see this new dragon basically re-control the sky from Reconquista's dominance as it murders every dragon and every rider sent to kill it.
He's not going to let this continue, as he immediately gets a Wind Dragon and starts flying up to the new dragon, just in time for the red moon's light to slowly lose its effect. And when he manages to get closer during the time the 'dragon' doesn't attack, he sees it turn to its left and he has the view of the rider.
Enraged, Wardes releases a Wind Blast directly to the familiar, but his opponent pulls out something that he vaguely remembered already seen in the Port City and fires a shot to his spell, somehow destroying it and gazing his dragon's skin. At that moment he also hears the non-mistaken sound of a musket being fired. "…A kind of flintlock." However, even when the spell is gone, the barrel of said 'musket' is still pointing at him, so Wardes immediately makes an evade maneuver, and his decision is correct as more shots are fired out before the familiar puts it away.
He then watches the familiar getting himself out of his current position and climb up to the dragon's wing while the black armor starts covering around the user. Wardes fires an Electro Bolt to his opponent, and he sees the armor taking the hit with no problems. Then, in the armor's right hand, a long musket-like object appears and it's raised directly to the Wind Mage. Sensing the immense danger, Wardes quickly pulls his dragon away immediately as a volley of bullet shots heads just at where he was. He continues evading for at least half a minute while preparing his next spells, while his eyes never leave his opponent as he sees his opponent carefully aim at him before making quick shots. He then sees the familiar's gun stop firing, and he clearly sees the action of reloading one. Taking that chance, he starts firing multiple Electro Bolts to the 'dragon', causing it to steer away. After a few seconds, he sees the gun already reloaded, which is much faster than he expects, and Wardes has to dodge again.
This loop of firing/dodging happens for about two minutes before he notices the familiar jumping back to the cockpit…
…
"I commend you for the accurate teleportation, but it's way too risky my mistress." Re-controlling the plane, Wisdom questions the unexpected guest. "Shouldn't you be with Her Highness?"
"Prince Wales suggested a way to blow up the ship without too many people involved."
"…I understand. Keep your head down." Re-equipping his pistol, he flies the plane right above the Lexington where no cannons can reach them. He starts circling around the area and waits as Louise starts her chanting while looking at Brimir's Prayer Book in her left hand.
However, when he looks down… "Derf, make sure you land my mistress to safety the moment she finishes a spell."
That stops the girl mid-chant and asks in confusion: "What do you mean? Where are you…"
"Gotcha, partner!" That's the only answer Wisdom needs before jumping off the plane, ignoring the shouts of surprise from Louise.
During the fall, he calls out his sword and aims directly at the woman below him. Throughout the process, the figure of the woman doesn't move once. While suspicious, his plan is already set in motion, so he strikes down to the figure… only for the woman to pull out her right dagger and swings it over her head and successfully blocks the hit without turning back. Despite the position, the woman could still deliver enough force to completely stop Wisdom's attack without herself getting pushed down. The exceed force is even enough to push him out, flinching him back. Though he lands on board with no problems after that.
"Arrived." The woman speaks up and turns to Wisdom, though the hood still completely covers her face. She draws out another dagger and lowers her stance. "Judgment."
"…I am ready." Using his own stance, Wisdom aims the tip of his sword directly at his new opponent.
"You are not."
All soldiers nearby notice their enemy being on their ship, and they aim their flintlocks/wands at him and open fire. In a split second, all attacks nearly touch the black armor. A tick of a second later, both the armor and the mysterious woman disappear at the same time, letting the outsiders' attacks either hit each other or fly away harmlessly. They don't even have a second to recognize or identify where they are, when multiple cuts appear on the ship and in the air, destroying the missing fires in the process and leaving deep cuts on the woods. The next second, everyone starts hearing metal clashing surrounding the ship, with the space looking like being broken apart.
They are so scared that they start looking around the area for the two combatants, completely forgetting the Void Mage nearly finishing her spell. Though Derf is the one controlling the plane and he needs to make some sudden breaks to the sides to dodge Wardes' attacks. That doesn't interrupt Louise much as she has managed to complete the spell, and when the plane tilts to a right angle, she peeks out and launches multiple explosions on the masts of the ship, breaking them in pieces. Then she traces the Wind Element inside the Wind Stones and detonates them as well, while praying that no one is in the same area. Though that leads to a chain of explosions in the lower part of the ship, and the ship slowly descends down with steadily increasing speed.
"Okay, time to get you down…"
"We have to wait for Wisdom first!" Louise is not going to leave her familiar alone, even though he's probably not going to die by falling, it would be stupid.
"Sorry pinkie, Partner prioritizes your safety first. And…" Another Wind Blast gazes the right wing of the plane. "Unless you want to fight him, be my guest." To respond to that, Louise stands up and throws a few Fireballs at Wardes, forcing him to fly away. Then she carefully aims for the last shot that severely hurt the Wind Dragon, as the creature starts falling down and brings its rider with it. "…He's going to survive that."
"At least he can't fight back now." She then tries to trace where Wisdom is, but other than the cracks in the space, she can't really find him through her naked eyes. Even with the way she traces down people's magic, she can't do the same on Wisdom, and surprisingly on the one he's fighting against. "I can't find both of them? What's going on here? Hey Derf, do you know…"
"Partner will answer… maybe."
Louise instantly knows something is up when the sword hesitates to say the last word. "Derflinger… who is Wisdom fighting against?"
"…Partner doesn't want me to say it before the fight ends. Sorry again."
Louise then looks down and sees the ground below them suddenly have a huge crack like something huge just crashed down. At that one second she manages to sense Wisdom and his opponent, then the feeling disappears the next second…
"What's the target this time?"
"A devil lord. Others, expendable."
"So basically a job for a clean-up crew. So you, me and…"
"Only me."
"…Are you sure?"
"Expendable, not deserved."
"…How do you define 'deserved'?"
"…Unclear. Needs context."
"In general?"
"…Unreasonable sinner."
"…How about I give you a distraction? We are a team, after all."
"…Plan updated."
"OI! Pinkie! You hear me?" Louise snaps out of the vision when Derf shouts to her, and now she realizes that the plane is already on the ground… though with a few scratches. "You were in a daze? You saw something?"
"…Just another piece of Wisdom's memories. I wonder why…"
Before the Void mage could say anything more, something slams right on the tail of the plane, causing it to spin one-eighty, which surprises both the sword and her. After a few seconds, Louise manages to clear her head and pokes out of the cockpit and looks at what just slammed into them… and sees the black armor lying on the ground a few feet away from them with its left arm missing, and a dagger stabbing in the chest area.
"W… WISDOM?!" Louise shouts in surprise as she jumps off the plane and heads straight to him. When she gets closer, the armor sits up and reaches for the sword which is only within arm reach. "Wisdom. What happened to you? Who is…"
"I'm sorry."
Before Louise can utter anymore words, she feels a force in her stomach that pushes her away and into a portal that appears out of nowhere behind her back. A second later she falls back on the ground, not knowing yet of where she is…
"Louise?" The voice of Princess Henrietta can be heard on her right, and she turns to see the girl's waiting hand. The Void mage grabs it and she's now pulled up. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I'm… okay." The girl replies, then turns around to find no Wisdom. "Where's Wisdom?! He is…"
"Over."
"…It is over. You win."
"Die."