The early morning forest was quiet, early quiet. The wind, what little there was, was soft and gentle. On the ground were some glowing remains on once soft fires and trashed areas where creatures had bedded down for the night. Now it was empty.
WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP
In the distance, a great sound reverberates forward. The sound of thousands of wing beats flying through the air.
Up high against the bark and what lower laying branches could be found, soft movement sifted at the noise. Hiding amongst the trees, dragons waited, ready to try to carry through with what has got to be a crazy plan.
Meanwhile, on the ground amongst roots, leaves and bushes rest foxes. Behind the largest of the roots rest even more dragons.
On the ground, nestled between two perfectly placed roots, an earth dragon hunkered even lower as the sounds got closer. He was doing his best to hid his Orange...everything. The only thing not orange was his vast sea-colored eyes. Said eye weres staring up into the sky, looking for his brother amongst those above.
The earth dragon had an idea of where his brother was, but trying to see the midnight black dragon with brown underbelly, horns (horns begin to curve down like a ram then shoots straight up), and wing membrane and eyes of a light oak were tricky. That dragon was very well camouflaged. He was not the only one. After all, each position for someone to hide in was picked to provide as much coverage and make it easier to hide as possible.
A light shift next to the earth dragon was the only warning he received that he was not alone.
"I swear to all that is holy, Tatsu, that if you or you're brother fuck this up, I am going to Hog-tie the both of you and drag you away from here."
The newly named Tatsu turned and glared at Harlid, who had whispered to him.
Harlid's face was completely neutral, stone face, in response to the glare even as he kept whispering, "I don't care if it's you or Dracul. I'll make sure you both are punished."
The young earth dragon wanted to growl, but he knew doing so was a bad idea. So instead, he turned to look towards the ever-increasing thundering of wings best before responding.
Tatsu noticed that the older earth dragon seemed to smirk out of the corner of his eye before shifting off slowly. He was likely checking up on others. They had to get this first strike right, or else everything else would fail. There were only a few hundred of them, dragons and foxes.
Sure, they planned for this first strike to be much more violent than anything following, but they did not even number a full thousand. This was made even worse given the fact that they'd be splitting into much smaller groups afterward.
They had to get this right.
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The thundering sound of an army of dreadwings in flight. Not since the last great battle against the scaled ones had he heard such a mighty sound. A tremendous and mighty ape rotated his head to look at the vast army which surrounded him. His master had ordered them to hunt down those that elude him, and that is what they will do if they can find the damned things.
The Ape General huffed as he adjusted his grip on both his flying mount and the excellent war hammer. He wanted to fight, needed to fight, but they still did not know where their prey was.
Like all Ape Generals, he would not sully his paws except for the most potent enemies and most critical missions. He knew amongst his prey were dragons worthy of his might; he needed to fight them.
Strange movement in his formation caught the general's eye. A light scout was returning.
"General, we see camp, but no dragons!"
The general growled, "Then the cowards flee before us." He turned to bellow his next orders, "Investigate the camp. Find their trails. They will not escape our fury!" The responding hoots and screeches were music to his ears. His apes were just as excited as he was.
They were soon over this once campsite. Even from where he was in the sky, the general could see some of the half-cold embers from the small fire bits. He could tell the dragons had only allowed the fires to be just strong enough to cook meat and provide light warmth. They were trying to hide even when at camp, clever.
The giant ape huffed; here he was, complementing the scaled ones. He must be getting old.
Several of the commanders of the army flew down with their subordinates to investigate the camp. All were impatient, and they had to find the trail.
Most of the army flapped around above, waiting for word. The general pulled his dreadwing into a hover. He needed a staple position to observe his great force.
The Sun broke through the high trees in places, it was still very morning, and the sound of thousands of wing bits filled the air. It was perfect.
Until it was not.
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Marshal gritted his teeth as he flexed his muscles and claws trying to hang on just a bit longer. His breaths were becoming strained as he worked to steady himself on the large branch he was hanging from. He was so high up that if he seized up and fell, there would not be much left of him on the ground.
The wind dragon had no clue what possessed him to fly up into the canopy of the Giant's Forest and wait there for the ambush. Maybe it was something about seeing everything from such high up, even if the ground looked vertigo-inducing from that high up. And yet, in the canopy, he stayed, waiting.
And now, the enemy was directly below him. He would have signaled the ambush almost immediately if it was not for just how many there were!
He had, at best, 700 dragons ready to fight. Of that number, only a little over 200 were uninjured dragons willing to keep fighting. The rest were injured to some degree or felt they were not strong enough for prolonged fighting so that they could go only for this initial ambush, at least for today. The other half of the dragons in the horde were back with non-combatant foxes, either not willing to fight, too young, too injured, too weak, or just not ready to leave the others entirely on their own. And lest he forgot, Marshal had to remind himself that out of all them, Spyro and Cynder were the only ones trained and experienced in not only how to fight but use their magic in a significant way!
And beyond the dragons, there were maybe, if he squinted right, 400 foxes in this ambush. Most of those were hunters by trait, the actual warriors of the group numbers just barely 100 (102 to be precise). The hunters only had light bows and rock slings. They had no place in prolonged fighting. This was especially true against even the smallest of dreadwings, not even considering the already hardy apes. The warriors had their giant boomerangs, which had already proven strong enough in capable and trained paws to be able to cut down their enemies, but there was a reason only the warriors had them.
That gave them just under 1,300 creatures: one Thousand, Three Hundred under-trained, under-equipped creatures vs. thousands of battle-hardened dreadwings and their ape riders.
If Marshal were not concentrating on not dropping, he would have gulped. Hearing the wing beats as they came in was bad enough. Seeing the large army before them was another thing. He could not tell it was a few thousand, or ten thousand below him, just that there was a whole hell of a lot of them.
And if he was scared, he could only imagine how the rest of them were feeling. He knew this was going to be crazy, but he had in no way expected something this...vast, he was going with vast.
Marshal turned his head to where he knew the Legendary Couple was hiding. They had been placed to make out where he was and still had a promising avenue of attack. Their power would be the cornerstone to make sure they got out alive, and everyone knew it by now.
Spyro was poking his head out from what Marshal could see, staring in shock at the great army below him. He had never seen so many dreadwings and apes before. Marshal guessed, correctly, that Spyro probably thought that maybe they had numbered in such numbers before, but not anymore. Apparently, dreadwings were good at repopulating; who knew.
Cynder, meanwhile, was going from looking at the army to keeping an eye on Marshal. She had better ideas of what made up the Dark Army. She had even tried to warn Marshal and the others that the numbers they were going to be facing might be much higher than anyone thought. They had thought they had accounted for that; they had thought they might be outnumbered two or even three to one. But not what was probably closer to eight or nine to one!
Marshal took a few deep breaths; he had to focus. They had a plan. They knew they probably would not be able to take out the army wholesale. So there was a hell of a lot more than they originally planned for. That did not change their plans. Gorilla warfare was their plan, and they would be sticking to it.
So, with one last deep breath. Marshal let go from his branch on high and started his descent.
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The first sign that something was wrong was when the Ape General's hair started to stand on end. The general growled as he swung his mount around, trying to find the bubbling source of Magic.
The only warning he received about the attack was the roar of a dragon. And then the fist of an angry god slammed into his flyers from above.
Even with his great strength, the general and his mount were bashed from the sky. It was like a great paw and slapped down upon them, trying to crush them into the ground.
The general, well used to warfare and fighting dragons and their accursed magic, recovered quickly. He readied to issue an order to find the source when his mount screeched in pain.
The giant ape's eyes quickly found the source; an arrow had found a lucky spot near the wing joint of his mount.
Growling in rage, the general ripped the offending arrow out of the dreadwing. Such an injury was not enough to stop the creature from flying, so he cared not. As he did so, the ape could also see his dreadwing was not the only one. All around him, dreadwings and their riders had been and were being pelted with arrows.
A mighty clank rang through his ears as something rounded off his helmet. The ape looked to see a rock.
The Ape General rode in rage as he swung his war hammer up and readied an order. His great army was being assaulted with sticks and stones; he would not stand this injustice.
And yet, before he could rally the counterattack, the next force hit.
The first explosion almost threw the general off his mount; the next one deafened and blinded him; the third managed to singe his armor a bit, but then again, it was a lighting explosion, so it was mildly more understandable.
All around him, great explosions of elemental energy erupted in his army. Even as his sight returned, he could scarcely see the great blobs of magic striking his clustered army from above.
And then he felt it from below.
Above and below, they were being attacked from above and below. And to top it off, the blasted attacks kept coming.
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Tatsu roared out as he slammed his paws into the ground, significant spikes of earth lept forth. His target was a group of apes who had dismounted their mounts to look at their ex-camp. His aim was true, and he could proudly say the abominable creatures suffered the price of trying to kill them.
Even as his attack rased off, the young earth dragon was already looking and reading his magic for his next target. After all, that was all they could do. There were so many dreadwings and apes that it was a target-rich environment. They had to take as many down as they could.
A roar caught Tatsu's ear even as he loped a blob of earth magic at a low flying dreadwing, said dreadwing becoming encased in a bolder upon being hit by the said blob.
The roar was simple, "CHARGE!"
In the next stage of their ambush, they had to keep the army as off-balance as possible, for as long as possible. Range only did so much.
So with a roar of his own, and alone with hundreds more from dragon and fox alike, Tatsu lept directly into the fray.
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Marshal huffed as he flew around another tree. He had not stopped flying since his first attack, unleashing blasts of wind as he flew around, watching, trying to strike where attacks were light. He could barely make out those on the ground charging into the large swaths of apes and dreadwings on the floor upon Horhe giving the order with everything going on.
Marshal had been very much against allowing the fighting to become close-quarters-combat. He was firmly of the mind that they can recover their magic quicker than any injuries they would sustain from claw and sword. But he'd been overruled by everyone else, they needed to keep the enemy off-balance, and that meant getting in close.
So with a growl and completing his loop around the tree, Marshal gave his own roaring order, "Dive!"
He banked in flight, rolling his lateral flight into a dive. Snapping his wings to his sides, and moved to crash through the explosions still erupting, crashing into the disoriented dreadwings.
He was not the only one diving into the swarm. Several dragons jumped off their perches in trees to get close and unleash claws, teeth, tail, and the most immediate and most potent bits of magic they could.
Each and every one of the dragons diving in this manner had been picked to do this because they were either physically strong or had proven they could at very least fly better than a brick.
It was a scattered formation, and they had been positioned all around the ambush point with no regard for groupings. The plan was to maximize coverage in this first pass. And what a pass it was.
From an outside perspective, it was a mighty sight. Over a hundred dragons dropped from the sky, crashing against and around dreadwing and apes, all the while great explosions of elemental energy erupted around them. Their first pass through the displaced ranks of their enemy was heralded with screeches of pain and apes screaming in shock as tails sliced, claws raked, and elemental attacks reached out.
Once through, or more accurately got closer to the ground as the dreadwings were flying at all altitudes, the diving dragons banked back up and around. That is when they started to group up. Their plan was formations of two to four, but typically three. Marshal had taken inspiration from some of his favorite games back on earth, Flight Simulators.
They flew in arrow-like formations; the dragon at the front directed their flight and concentrated on only attacking what was in front of them, never stopping. Meanwhile, their "formation mates" are going for the sides. If it was three, the group acted more akin to flying trident with the two sides going for angels. If two, it was less of an actual formation and more of two dragons rolling around one another striking on target while another ran interference, then swapping roles once the target was down (Spyro and Cynder had proven this worked back at the Fox Village and so it was decided to get some of the flyers to try it). The rare few four-dragon formations were similar to the three, but the fourth one acted as a taker of "targets of opportunity." Basically, they flew just behind the other three and struck out at random points to finish off a creature which the other three had disoriented but had not been able to finish off before they flew past.
The key to this was the idea of "never stop." Everyone had agreed that if they stopped for any longer than a few seconds to "finish off" an enemy, there was a chance they were going to be quickly bogged down. The goal was not necessarily to kill everything but more cause as much chaos, destruction, and all-around impediments to the army chasing them as they could. The more injured the enemy had to treat and carry with them, the harder it would be for them to keep up. That was the plan, at least.
There were a handful of exceptions to the formation flyers. Marshal was one of them. Marshal was not only the most maneuverable of all of them but his general fighting style. At the same time, flying was akin to a ping-pong-ball: He bounced from target to the next, at times defying the laws of physics as he smashes into a dreadwing and ripping the ape or wing off the dreadwing and then jumping off the soon to be corpse to his next target. All the while, between strikes, throwing around Wind Blasts, Snap Tornadoes, small Balls of Gaseous Fire Balls, and just about anything he could think of to break up groupings.
He refused to try and do something as substantial as the thermobaric type he'd used at the fox village. It took too much time/magic, and with as close as they were fighting, there was a good chance it would injure them as well. That was not to say he was not doing some similar items, just with a lot less magic and purely wind-based. For example, a Vacuum was easy to create with wind-based magic; just tell everything in an area that it needed to be five feet in a random direction. Instant Vacuum which would suck in to fill itself, dragging dreadwings together, sometimes with enough force to crack bones, meanwhile the air which had been displaced slammed into a different dreadwing creating a small explosion. In just this fight alone, Marshal had begun to figure out an Idea for a Vacuum Breath: Create a Breath of Wind so powerful it left a vacuum in its wake; the vacuum would last for a little under a second before rapidly filling. Anything caught in the trail would get hurt somehow, and if the forefront of the breath hit something, there would be enough air that it would be comparable to being hit with a cannon.
The damage of Marshal attacks was devastating, yet what he was doing paled in comparison to the Legendary Couple. When making the plan, no one could think of how best to plan for the purple dragon and his companion. So it was decided not to plan for them. They were told, and they agreed, with the simple principle of Go to town.
And so, the male and female duo struck hard and true. While in places they fought similarly to the other two dragon formations, in others, they simply tore through dreadwings and apes who looked like they had started to rally by themselves or under the command of one of the Army's Commanders. They would have gone for the General if they had been able to find him. There had not been time to figure out which of the giant apes was the General of this army before the ambush had begun in earnest. They just had to hope they could either take him out before he rallied his forces, or he was too disoriented that he was out of the fight long enough for them to do enough damage.
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The Ape General was pissed. Scratch that; he was seething with wrath. These accursed dragons had ambushed his forces in a manner that was supposed to be the specialty of his troops! He had a hard time wrangling his dreadwing under control with all the accursed attacks forming around him. To say nothing of the damned fools dislodging his commanders from their attempts of forming up.
Even as his mount fought him for control, the giant ape could see the scattered formations of dragons flying through his rapidly spreading ranks. They were keeping them disjointed and scattered, both on the ground and in the air.
In the back of his mind, and only in the back, the general had to give some credit. To strike both the ground and the air, keep the two from helping the other, it was a good plan. Air battles were always chaotic; this was especially true with Dragons in the mix. Granted, this was the first time he had seen formations like this in an air battle.
In the past, when he was still just a Commander fighting under King Gual during the Ape Wars, the dragons had fought similarly in both air and ground: line formation. Once that was broken in the air, it was a crapshoot between a Roving Stronghold-type fight or Chase-Fighting.
To see dragons now using Flying-Formation tactics was a shock. Dreadwing fought similarly to how a small bird would process its nest from a usually superior predator, Strike-and-Harass. One dreadwing goes in and tries to catch attention, maybe injuring it, while another comes from a blind spot to push and cause more damage. Sure, if the dragon was smaller or weaker, most dreadwings could face them one on one, but any dragon worth their status as a warrior could and would take out any dreadwing in a straight engagement.
Most dreadwing riders were poorly trained and almost always went for that one on one fight. But outside of light patrols, none of the dreadwings went without a trained officer to lead them.
So the ability of the dragons flying to prevent the reformation of command and allowing for the continued disorder to flourish was commendable. On the ground, it was vastly different.
Ape commanders did not lead from the back. They charged. The problem was that they had to know what was going to be able to charge. The general's commanders on the ground were not suffering from being struck down. No, they were suffering from a lack of information.
The dragons and their allies (the general still had no clue who they were, but someone had to be launching those annoying arrows and rocks and speak nothing of oversized boomerangs swinging from around trees to size his apes into pieces) were not charging through formations as one could in the air. No, on the ground, it was more akin to a heavyweight brawler jumping into clumps of leaves, throwing his weight around, then jumping to a different cluster before the leaves finished falling to the ground.
It was happening all over the place. The general watched as a fire dragon launched a massive ball of fire at a group of small apes, tossing them like rag dolls. While at the same time, he bulldozed into a medium ape near them, tossing the ape up before swiping his tail to kill said ape and then release a fire breath at a dreadwing which was turning in its direction.
And that fire dragon was not the only one. Hundreds were doing this. And all the while, Arrows and stones injured and disoriented his flyers, and elemental explosions were scattering his forces.
This had to end. NOW!
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Marshal threw himself to the side, avoiding an ape explosive. With an adjustment, he looked back at the source and blasted the attacking ape. He was unsure if he killed the ape, but he did not have time to double-check. The shock of the ambush was wearing off, and the counter-attacks were starting.
It was still sporadic and primarily individualistic. Marshal could tell that Spyro and Cynder were doing a damn good job keeping the officers from rallying.
Marshal's mind was working overtime, trying to figure out how to keep the pace going. They needed to do more damage before they pulled back.
The option was taken out of his paws; a sudden movement caught his eye.
Flying out of an elemental explosion, a gigantic ape was manhandling its mount, roaring and wielding a giant war hammer. The ape was covered in armor, decorated, and complete. The ape also looked charred in places and, above all, Pissed the fuck off.
One of the exceptions to the formation flying thought that ape was a good target, the dragon dived down on the ape.
Before the dragon could even strike, the ape had pulled back on his mount, making it rear and redirect. The dragon could not change direction and would have missed internally, except for the ape's weapon.
The weapon swung around faster than it should have been able to and struck the dragon center mass. Marshal could faintly see the look of shock and spittle of blood coming from the dragon's mouth as the weapon hit, continued, and proceeded to throw the dragon into a nearby tree. The crash of the dragon was faintly heard over the din of the battle. Thankfully, depending on who you ask, the dragon did not indent into the tree. But that did mean that he soon peeled off and started to fall.
Marshal was unsure if anyone else saw it, but he did know he was the closest. So he started his dive to catch the now unconscious dragon.
As he dived, he spotted out of the corner of his eye that same ape swinging his war hammer around again. At first, he was uncertain of what the ape was doing, then he saw the weapon glow slightly and then strike a fireball mid-flight. Instead of exploding, the fireball was batted back the way it came.
Just as Marshal reached the dragon which had been smacked into a tree and grabbed him, grunting from the effort of now having to flap for two, he both heard the fireball explode with the dragon who fired roaring in shock and pain and the ape roar as he seemed to bat back another elemental attack.
He turned to look at the ape just in time for the ape to swing and unleash what looked to be a magical wave of energy from his large weapon. The wave struck at a group of dragons who had taken a position in a nearby tree. The wave hit their cover and not the dragons directly, thankfully, but the resulting burst of energy was enough to destroy their perch and throw them wholesale.
Then the Ape roared again, this with words, "They fight from the Trees! Tear them Down! Anywho run, I will pulverize myself!" He then proceeds to charge at a three dragon formation nearby, his dreadwing barely missing the lead dragon. The war hammer, on the other hand, struck true.
It would have been akin to an anime beat down to anyone watching: A blast of wind on contact and the target being flung towards the earth. Thankfully the dragon was saved from an even more painful crash by his wingmates, though they had to recover from the blast before they could dive, so the ground was close when they caught their injured ally and started to try and fly out.
Marshal knew instantly the tide had turned. That was proven doubly so when he heard roars of pain from below. He quickly spotted the source, the commanders on the ground had gotten tired of disorder, and instead of trying to organize, they just decided to attack. Already three dragons had been blasted back by the countering commanders. And meanwhile, the foxes had to switch from attacking the flyers to attacking the waves of apes charging at them.
The fight was over; Marshal still had an unconscious dragon in his paws. Spyro and Cynder looked to have gotten into a game of cat and mouse with a flight, almost a squadron, really, of dreadwings and their furious riders. And given the fact that a war hammer wielding ape was not only batting back the attacks aimed at him but was also throwing out strange magic of his own, Marshal did not think they had anyone who could take out what had to be the centerpiece of this army.
So, infusing as much magic into voice as he could, he let loose a roaring order, "Retreat! The initiative is lost! Retreat! Get injured out and put as much distance as you can!"
The order was given, Marshal flapped his wings with all his might working on getting his cargo and himself out of the area with all hast. The responding roars and cries from the rest of his allies soon followed.
Dragons on the ground rushed to the foxes, some picking up with paws, others stopping just long enough to let the agile onto their backs before taking off. The ambush was done, what damage could be done was done. Now it was time to get the hell out.
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The Ape General heard the dragons cry out the retreat. They were fleeing from his might yet again. He would not allow them to escape so easily.
He roared out to his commanders, calling them to form ranks and give chase to scattering dragons with what he could now tell were foxes in their care. If they had run in similar directions, he would simply order a battle line and chase them down. But now, they fled in a half-circle worth of directions. He cared not how many there were; he wanted them all hunted.
Though battered and bruised, he sill greatly outnumbered them; he would not let them escape.
The most significant group of them formed around the dragon who called the retreat. That was the group that also seemed to be carrying the most injured. There was only one place they would hold their injured, too, at least in his mind. The only place they could go was where they felt safest, where the rest of these pitiful creatures were hiding.
So he let his commanders handle the other obvious faints and personally commanded the case of the leading group. He spared only a moment's order to all those too injured to fight and a few of his commanders and their subordinates to land and begin treatment using the supplies on the pack carriers. He could not have his apes falling out of the sky on him.
His orders were given, the Ape General and the majority of his army gave chase.
Weighted down as they were, the dragons were slower than the dreadwings. They were already catching up. The general was eager; he would soon feel the feel of dragon blood on his war hammer again.
Just before apes and their riders got ready to begin an ascent to dive on the fleeing dragons, though, they proved the fight was not out of the scaled ones quite yet.
Several of the fleeing dragons banged within their gaggle of creatures and began to rain elemental attacks from long range on them. These dragons were unencumbered, and so they could zig-zag within the group and get angles of attack.
The general ordered what archers he had to return fire, but they could do little to reach them with anything threatening. A dragon's magic can almost always outrange conventional weapons. But the point was not to hurt them but to distract them just enough for the dreadwings to drop on them.
The first warning was when a few of the attacks he thought were aimed at his forces missed. He did not realize they were not the target until he heard the signs of trees snapping and groaning from above him.
The Ape general had just enough time to look up before branches bigger than any of his dreadwings came crashing down on him and his forces. It became evident there was more than just bark and leaves within these falling projectiles as the branches dropped on them. While light on the fire, the explosives had more in the wave of blast and smoke, the dragons had created a type of planned dust explosion and dropped on the ape's heads. While actual casualties were light, the resulting disorientation and, more importantly, visual and physical obstruction had bought them time.
By the point the general had gotten his forces reorganized, the dragons had vanished from sight.
His roar of fury was heard throughout the forest.
And when he heard back that similar events had happened to the rest of the forces, he had sent out. The General knew that his enemies had planned this from the start. In his fury, he swore they would not escape.
He ordered his commanders out. They would find the dragons; they would crush the dragons.
Once he ordered them out, he roared into the forest again, hoping the dragons heard him and knew the doom they were onto them. "Let the Hunt Begin!"
AN: So this kicked my but for a while...I do want to massively thank Sithman91 from deviant art. Chatting with him about this and the following few chapters really helped me to figure out how to type this beast.
I thought about continuing this and showing the follow-up for the ambush, but I'll save that and what comes next for the next chapter. It'll give me more to work with, basically. We have reached a point in the story where more and more plans/ideas have been solidified. So outside of my muse deciding to try and strangle itself again, I'm hoping to keep on coming out with new stuff semi-regularly!
So until we meet again! Happy reading!
PS: Hey, I didn't hold onto this for months this time! Improvement!
PPS: Forgot to credit Xer0ify for both Dracul and Tatsu. Don't Worry, we'll be seeing a lot more of these two chuckleheads as the story goes on.