Damien and Lisa Vin were at lunch when they heard the ruckus. "What"s going on?"Ruth glanced out the window. "Darian is fighting Remian."
"Boys." Lisa rolled her eyes.
"Brothers fight sometimes." Damien shrugged. "They"ll get over it."
***
"I failed." Darian reported to Doom gloomily some time later. "I couldn"t stop them. I"m sorry."
"It"s not your fault. They just wouldn"t accept our kindness. It came to a fight and you were outnumbered." Doom consoled him. "Try it again with backup and see."
"Yeah." Darian muttered glumly, not really reacting.
There was a short pause.
Then, Darian raised his head and found Doom looking at him expectantly. "What?"
"What did I just say?" Doom asked.
"You said to… try it again with backup…" Darian"s eyes widened. "Wait. You were serious? When?"
"Isn"t it obvious?" Doom snorted. "NOW. Go already!"
"Okay, okay!" Darian scrambled.
***
Five hours out from Three Pines, the expedition clashed with Darian again.
This time, he had backup.
"He"s got a dragon!" Alexei gulped.
"THAT is Har"es-dras." Remian confirmed. "And… Vigil?!"
Darian had come back with his two closest friends to help him; the dragon Har"es-dras, and the wolfcat cub Vigil. Now he had three times the numbers to fight the same enemies with as he had five hours ago!
Also, they were a hundred meters up in the sky, quite a long ways off the ground. The airship gave the expedition an advantage, but Darian had a dragon, so…
"Attack!" Darian made the first move, and threw Vigil at the deck.
"AWOOOO!" Vigil"s yelp was half-warcry, half sheer terror. The way he looked made Remian suspect he might soon qualify as a counseling case for battle trauma. [WHHHHYYYYYY?!!]
"Vigil!" Remian caught him, stumbled, and then both of them went scattering across the deck. "What are you doing here? Why are you even fighting?"
"Ruuuu!" [He threatened my dinner! My steak is at stake!]
"We have plenty of meat! Come join our side!" Mindy offered.
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"Wuu, wuuu…" [It"s not the same! The meat at Dragon Lake are whole Tiers higher!]
That was true. There was almost no Tier 4 or 5 meat available to wolfcats back at KarGoth. At Dragon Lake, any random leftover from a dragon"s meal would be at least that high-tiered.
"Restrain him!" Mindy barked an order.
Sir Ivan and his squire pounced on the wolfcat with nets. They might not be able to help in an aerial battle between an airship and a dragon but by steel and fire, they could definitely handle a one-wolfcat boarding raid!
But Vigil would not go down so easily. He scurried to the side, avoiding the net, then dashed directly into the cabin, forcing the two knights to chase after him below decks…
There was a whole lot of crashing and yelling. "There! Under the table! On the left! THE LEFT!"
BANG! "Look out behind you!"
KAPOW! "He"s coming your way!"
The whole deck shook. "Grab him! GRAB HIM!"
"Not the kitchen!! NOOOOO!!"
"YIYIP!" Clang, clang, CLANG!
Meanwhile, Har"es-dras was ascending, flying higher, soaring above the airship…
"He"s aiming for the envelope!" Mindy gasped.
Har"es-dras spat a rapid stream of fireb.a.l.l.s at the airship.
"Light!" Remian flung up a barrier.
"Don"t overdo it!" Mindy warned Remian. "Let the magi handle it!"
"Icewall!" Alexei casted a barrier of his own.
"Tangle-vine!" His students likewise casted spells prepared earlier. "Earth Shield!"
"Fireball!" One of them even intercepted an incoming fireball with another.
"Web!" a fourth student tried…
And failed. To be fair, the web met the fireball spot on, but it failed to stop or even slow the incoming flames. There was a brief impact on the armored envelope of the military-grade Red Fang, and then a sharp explosion that jarred the airship a little.
"Envelope"s taking damage! We can"t take too many of those!" Mindy barked. "DO something!"
"a.s.signments! Team 2 on defense! Team 1, with me!" Alexei growled. "Petrov!"
"Team 2, support me." Petrov took charge of defense. "We"ll cast the Great Sphere of Light!"
But just then, Har"es-dras charged, physically streaking for the airship with claws extended.
"Too late!" Remian shouted. "LIGHT!"
A huge wall of light went up. Har"es-dras crashed right into it with a thunderous roar. Light rippled, the air shook, and Mindy could have sworn she saw lightning…
BAM! Wait. That wasn"t lightning. That was… "Darian?!"
He had leapt clear off the dragon"s back in mid-air and was currently on top of the airship, stabbing it with some spear-like bone. Despite all its military-grade armor, despite all its resistance to magic cannon fire, a direct stab with a dragonbone spear managed to pierce the envelope. Gas started to leak out.
"Not good!" Mindy gasped.
Darian went on stabbing. Hole after hole was torn in the envelope.
"There!" Darian"s voice had somehow turned weirdly high-pitched. "Now you"re going down!"
"What happened to your voice?" Mindy asked, bewildered.
"It"s the helium." Remian said, but he didn"t have time to explain. The airship was already starting to drop slowly.
"You"re going to pay for those repairs!" Mindy yelled at him, shaking her fist.
"Charge it to my brother!" Darian invited, jumping back on to Har"es-dras.
"HEY!" Remian protested.
"I"ll be back for Vigil later!" Darian yelled over his shoulder as he and Har"es-dras flew away.
***
Slowly, the airship descended until at last, it set down atop a steep hill deep in rocky terrain.
Remian grunted, strapping on his ME-Frame. "It looks like we"re going to have to do this on foot."
"Can"t we call for help, or rides, or something?" Mindy asked. "We can still contact George or Talia."
"Actually, don"t. Call Mom." Remian said.
"You want to ask her to set Darian straight?"
"No, that probably won"t work. But I think she can get to us safely enough. If she came looking for us with an airship, Darian would a.s.sume we just called for a ride home. He might just let it get to us without any problems. As long as we don"t try to take the airship farther south, as long as it only heads back north, he"ll probably even let it go."
"You want to give up?" Mindy gasped.
"No way." Remian said. "But if we"re going to continue the rest of the way on the ground, we"re going to need equipment."
So he called Lisa Vin and asked her to bring some stuff over.
"Camping gear, Supplies, ME-Frames, and Tier 4 wolfcats? Anything else?" Lisa mused. "Anything or anyone specific you need?"
"Yes. Please bring Carrie." Remian said, eyeing Vigil, who was thoroughly netted and hanging from a tree. "We need her to guard the hostage."