His Majesty's Dragons: The Battle of Britain

[LadyTevar]

Jebediah had reached Judith just after Jake ran for Kunja and took to the air. Like Capricorn, for a moment he hunched over her and the nearby Admiral, allowing the bullets and debris from the bomb that hit Veritas to hit his more durable body.

For Judith, it was like everything slowed down so she could see it all.
A much larger, golden dragon was moving their way... Judith assumed it was the Admiral's dragon coming for him.
Kunja was in the air. Frostfell was up, no harness marking his bone-white scales.
Jebediah had only the basic flight harness, although she still had her flight suit from their earlier practice. No weapons.
Veritas was down. Fulminatus, Æquitas, Sememnon, she couldn't see them anywhere.

They were going to die on the ground

"JEB! UP!!"
It didn't sound like her own voice, and she had no idea how or when she'd climbed aboard Jeb. Time was still slowed down to her, allowing her to see everything far too clearly.
The paintgun had been left with the war harness she'd removed after touching down. If her groundcrew surviv... Don't Think That!... Her ground crew had it, as well as her tommygun and ammo for it and the shot...
Shotgun. It was in the normal place on the harness, where she always kept it for hunting. Habit had her grab it and cock it, then look around her to see the enemy as Jebediah strained for altitude, where he could not only see the battle, but strike like the falcon he mimicked.

Frostfell had a Kampy-whosit after him. Kunja... where was Kunja? Æquitas was in the air, beside on all sides. A flash of Bright Red........
What was that bright red dragon?

"Jeb! I'm thinkin' tha' red one's wantin' noticed!"
"Kunja's there," Jeb shouted back, his eyes seeing far more of the battle than Judith's merely human ones.
"Wingman, Jeb!"
"No." Jebediah answered, executing a snap mid-air turn that should make the Germans rub their eyes at the near impossiblity of the maneuver. "Godfrey's in trouble."

Rule Number One : Protect the specials
"Go, Jeb!"
The encouragement was unnecessary, as Jeb raced to distract the gray-black heavyweight trying to bring Godfrey down.

[Cynical Cat]

"Move it!" Nathan rasped loudly at his men. Acidic fumes had scarred his vocal apparatus so it was easier to cough up blood than actually shout. Still, he managed to be loud enough to be heard over the din of battle.

They rushed to a gun pit littered with bodies. Shrapnel had killed the men, but the gun was still serviceable. Thirty-seven millimeters was enough to lay a hurting on any dragon, especially the smaller and more fragile breeds. The gun shield was scarred from shrapnel and the controls were sticky with blood. The best possible choice of target was the one he wanted to kill the most. Comparatively fragile by dragon standards, still comparatively low and easy to target, and high value kills. The Aufseher. The gun swiveled as Nathan went hunting.


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Frostfell twisted in the air as the Kampfritter came straight at him. Shells streaked by the Wendigo, most missing but several struck flesh and opened new wounds. Frostfell jinked up, out of the line of fire, and then down as the dragons came together.

The Kampfritter was slow, dumb, and heavily burdened and Frostfell was very agile for a heavy. He passed over the Kampfritter's maw and then down over the larger dragon's back, he wing left wing sweeping just above the dragon saddle. At their combined velocity for a man to be struck by that wing would be like striking a steel pole at a hundred miles an hour. Flesh was pulped and bone pulverized as Frostfell swung around as the dragon's passed each other.

The Wendigo's tail whipped along the Kampfritter's back, adding to the carnage as the agile dragon turned swiftly, moving faster than the lumbering heavyweight could come about. Frostfell pounced on it from five o'clock high, but his target wasn't the dragon. The Wendigo's talons reached for the German captain.

[Agent Fisher]

In a dogfight, the keys to success are speed and altitude. If you have one, you can convert it to the other. The Kampfritter had altitude at first, then traded it for speed as it swept in behind Godfrey. The Spitfire bucked and shook with each hit from the Kampfritter's weapons. When one finds themselves with a heavy class dragon on their six, without the speed or altitude needed to evade them, there are few options.

Jonathon was simply hanging on, trying to think of how to get out of this. As he was thinking, he screamed, a burst of gunfire hitting his leg. Godfrey heard his Captain's pained scream. The Spitfire flapped his wings, shooting upwards, his airspeed dropping to close to nothing. The distance with the trailing Kampfritter dropped. The Spitfire twisted in the air, his belly now to the Kampfritter. When the distance was close enough, Godfrey released a stream of fire, aiming right for the head of the jerry dragon and intending to let the fire slide backwards, washing over the large dragon.

[Jason_Firewalker]

From the back of the flatbed the battle could be heard in the distance. Being transfered from one squadron to another after all his friends were annhiliated was not a fun thing. John was depressed and melencholy but the explosions roared him back to life. Without armament besides their personal weapons, the took to the air with grace and fury combined. Flying low they came upon the covert. With little dragons all over the place and a pair of unoccupied Kampfritters flying about Nex jinked towards a Kampfritter and out of the fogbank. The side gunners opened up with their BARs on the enemy lightweight that had chosen to find them an appealing and open target, Nex took a slash from the lightweight across her lower back and Tomplinson and Ericson fell off the dragon's back.

"Are you okay Nex?" John quickly asked.

"Don't worry yet" Nex responded.

With a roar for the ages she dropped down towards the low flying Kampfritter.

[General Havoc]

As Jake and Kunja ran, the red-painted Bavarian did not pursue. Though slightly faster, perhaps, than Kunja was, it had no interest in chasing a single lightweight all over the sky. The Leuchtkaffers were handling Tempestas, and Kunja had broken off his attack and run. Accordingly, Albatros turned inwards, remaining near the heavier German dragons ready to engage any target of opportunity that presented itself, should Kunja or another decide to come back.

*------------------------------------------------------*

Everything happened at once.

Godfrey flipped around and went belly-up to the incoming dragon, releasing a stream of fire designed to wash over the mighty heavyweight. Normally, the Kampfritter would have closed its eyes and blown right through the firestream, but a cry from one of its lookouts and the crashing guns of the main topturret, signalled a shift. The dragon seemed to slow, then jackknifed in mid-air and dove, passing under the stream of fire with nary a singe, and indeed, under Godfrey entirely. Moments later, a Parnassian flew out of the clouds, materializing apparently from nothing, following the Kampfritter down as the crew brought its guns around to bear and called for assistance, as yet another lookout spotted the Smoke Devil bearing in from the left.

"Korkenzieher Manöver ausführen"

A Kampfritter was a heavyweight, well able to take on both a Parnassian and a Smoke Devil at once, but with Godfrey in the air, its captain would take no chances. A call of the radio brought one of the Swabian Lightning Bolts around, breaking off its attack on Æquitas, as it turned and flew head-on towards the Kampfritter, as though trying to ram it. At the last second however, the Kampfritter winged over and the Lightning Bolt flew past it at top speed, hidden from the lookouts aboard the Parnassian until the last second, when they suddenly had a speeding Lightning Bolt flying straight at them, head lowered for a ram.

*-----------------------------------------------------------*

A 37mm shell exploded the belly turret of one of the circling Aufsehers, and it screamed and faltered as the AD gun took it into its sights. Shells burst in every direction, sending chain armor and black blood flying in every direction, but an Aufseher still took more than a few shots from a Bofors to bring it down, and the fire bursting from the Anti-Dragon gun was enough to draw attention. The winggunner on the Aufseher took the humans below under fire, as the Aufseher winged around and flew towards the gun, intending to melt it to slag with a vomitous blast of acid.

*-----------------------------------------------------------*

The captain of the Kampfritter saw what was coming, and shouted instructions to his dragon, but this was no veteran Speckled Bavarian or unshakable Jotunmeister, but a Kampfritter, and it mis-understood...

... twice.

The Captain ducked under the swipe of the wing as Frostfell came over, and the crew running about on the Kampfritter's back tried to do the same... with mixed success. Two men not looking the right way were hit in the back of the head and crumpled like puppets with their strings cut. Two more failed to get down in time, one taking the blow to the crown of his head, which crushed it like a watermelon, the other managing to merely get clobbered in the chest, flinging him off of his dragon and knocking him unconscious, in which state he dangled by his carabineers. The real issue however, was not the crew, but the equipment. The Kampfritter's topgunner managed to dive aside, but his weapon, a quad-20mm cannon, oriented forward to fire at Frostfell, could not get out of the way. Frostfell hit it dead on, and tore it from its mountings, shattering the turret it was set in and snapping it from the harness. The gun did not fall away, for the shock of the impact bent the barrels of the cannon inwards around the leading edge of Frostfell's wing, sticking it in place. A moment later, the white dragon carried it off, his tail lashing the Kampfritter and snapping the neck of another crewman as he left.

Frostfell was quicker on the turn, and came about before the Kampfritter could do the same, now with the advantage of altitude and position. The guns that would have pulverized a lightweight could not hold back a half-mad Wendigo, and it pounced, not towards the Kampfritter's body, but towards its captain.

No living dragon on earth was so stupid as to evade the understanding of what to do about that.

The Kampfritter rolled over and took Frostfell's pounce on its underside, grabbing it with all four limbs as it fell backwards and began to plummet towards the ground. Frostfell had the clear advantage of position, and scored the Kampfritter terribly, but the German heavyweight was built to take such beatings, and it returned every blow with one harder still, scrambling to try and get into position for a fatal strike. The last remaining unengaged Lightning Bolt flew in to support, but could not line up a clean ram on the White devil of the Canadas, not while it was spinning and entangled with the Kampfritter, so instead it dove alongside, waiting for an opening to get at its enemy.

[Charon]

Jake sighed with relief as Albatros broke pursuit, though he kept an eye on the bright red dragon as best he could. Kunja's sharp eyes had spotted the gun firing again though, and the Aufseher that was moving to silence it. Beating his great gray wings again the Victorian gained altitude quickly and sought to get above the midweight spitter while Jake pulled out a few of the paint balloons he still had onboard.

[LadyTevar]

It all happened at once... Godfrey turning into the Kampfritter and flaming it, then the Kampy fleeing the incoming heavy that Judith assumed was a friendly. She gave a wave to Godfrey as she spoke "Jeb? Gotta new target?"

"Below!" Jebediah answered, spotting the Aufseher who was just a little too far from his support as it turned back to hit the Anti-Dragon emplacement. Judith just barely turned the wave into a 'diving!' gesture before Jebediah stooped like a falcon upon its prey.

Judith leaned close over Jebediah's neck, plastering herself down to reduce the drag as they dove, her golden sunset hair snapping like a pennant, bright against the SmokeDevil's blue-white hide. "Devil's Reverse!" she yelled, the wind snapping her words away, yet Jeb got the message. Hit the Aufseher, hook it, and use the momentum of the collision to slingshot in a new direction, away from its head and possible return strike, away from the heavyweight guarding it.

Amazingly, it worked. The Aufseher was focused on the emplacement, and didn't see them coming. The lookouts on his back didn't give warning in time, as the small blue&white diving dragon blurred against the sky, hitting speeds matching a Swabian. The SmokeDevil's claws, enlarged to cling to sheer rock faces, slashed the Aufsefer's right side, but it was the wicked hook on Jeb's wing that dug into the acid-spitter's scales.

The hook stuck and hung just long enough for the SmokeDevil's weight to slingshot him under the belly, just in front of the back legs, ripping a nasty gash as the hook snapped free. Then Jebediah and Judith were winging away from the Aufseher, having used the larger dragon to change their direction from a steep left-side dive to a level escape run going in the direction they'd came, right angles to the Kampfritter's approach.

To the Kampfritter's captain, the move should have been impossible ... would be impossible for any normal dragon breed : a dive from one-o-clock high, sling-shotting under the larger dragon's belly to emerge at four-o-clock level, a little of leftover momentum granting a touch of speed as the smaller dragon fled, his captain's bright golden hair streaming in the wind.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Without a second to spare Nex jinked to the right, trying to evade the Lightning Bolt, but with only mixed sucess. The Lightning Bolt lacked the turning radius nessecary for a center mass shot but still landed a terriably crunching blow to Nex's rear leg on the left side. Skull versus bone happened and the leg cracked with a loud sickening thump. Nex's jink manuver also let her latch onto the smaller Lightning Bolt. Closing her wings a bit she began to grapple the smaller dragon as best she could. As small arms fire was exchanged between the crews Nex swung her entire mass into the grapple in an attempt to squish the littler dragon against the ground that they were now only meters above.

"Nex?" Johnathan had distress in his voice. "Keep an eye out, don't let them get the drop like this again."

"Shut the fuck up! I got this under control!" Nex's voice seethed with anger and she sank her jaws into the rear quarters of the Swabian.

[rhoenix]

Glaring at the enemy dragons, Veritas managed to drag his unconscious Captain to shelter, and himself beneath some semblance of cover nearby. He seethed inwardly, but concentrated at the moment on making sure he and his captain survived the next few minutes.

[Cynical Cat]

Reynolds snapped, "load me." The sandbags and pit would shield the gun crew from most near miss splashes, but not a direct hit. The gun swiveled to track the incoming German dragon. "Come on you bastard," said Nathan. Some of his crew began to scatter as the acid spitter closed. "Finish what you started. End me. Or I end you." He laid the gun. He had the shot. He fired.

Above him Frostfell grappled with the Kampfritter. He had almost had the captain in his claws. Almost. But this was even better.

Frostfell struck at the Kampfritter's throat and his fangs closed on flesh. A light or middle weight would be in deep trouble, but a Kampfritter was a different order of beast entirely. Frostfell bit down and shook the bigger dragon, hard. He had enough muscle for the Kampfritter to feel that.

Even killing mad, Frostfell was a cunning beast. The point wasn't to do damage, which he was doing, but to get the dragon and its captain thinking about the fighting instead of the falling. The falling upside down from not a very great height above the ground. There wasn't much time.

Frostfell released his grip and disengaged, killing his fall and regaining control. The Kampfritter had very little time in order to right itself and kill its fall. They were a slow, clumsy, stupid breed and time was short. On a good day it wouldn't make it. On a very good it might make it. On its best day it would. The Kampfritter was about to have a very good day or its worst.

[General Havoc]

The Kampfritter didn't make it.

Spinning and twisting with the riotous frenzy of a heavyweight-on-heavyweight grapple, the Kampfritter was deaf to all threats of the approaching ground. Its crew was not, and neither was its captain, but their cries were lost in the roars and screeches of rending metal, sheering flesh, and flying black blood. It wasn't until the Wendigo tried to disengage that the Kampfritter realized its own altitude.

The great beast was slow and stupid, but not so slow and stupid that it had an overt desire to crash into the ground. Unfortunately, its weight and mass was such that even had it been upright, unencumbered, uninjured, and ungrappled, it would have been very hard pressed to avoid striking dirt. It was a mistake to consider Kampfritters clumsy, they were anything but, but their brains did not function fast enough to make the lightning maneuvers required, and so even as the Kampfritter stretched its wings out, and madly beat the air to try and arrest its fall, the crew and the captain realized they were going to hit.

... but then... so was its prey.

Frostfell, not without reason, endeavored to break free of the Kamprfitter's grasp, but breaking the grip of an enraged heavyweight was not something done easily, certainly not for another heavyweight, be they the lightest and fastest ever bred. The Kampfritter had no harness or gear to cling to, and the twisting, writhing Wendigo was slipperier than its standard prey, but a thirty ton dragon did not evade the scrabbling claws of its antagonist in a moment, nor in two, nor in many, and as the ground loomed up ahead the Kampfritter, mad and mean and savagely vindictive, unable to stop itself from hitting the dirt, made instead a concerted effort to grab, hold, and drive Frostfell into the ground right alongside it.

In this, it succeeded.

Neither dragon was falling at terminal velocity, literal or otherwise. Both had been scrambling and beating the air with their wings to halt their descent. Neither had succeeded, but both were thus moving slower than they otherwise would.

Lucky for them.

The Kampfritter smashed into the field next to the covert with all the grace and elegance of a collapsing skyscraper, utterly obliterating the rows of ripening wheat that had been planted there earlier in the year, casting up a shower of dirt like a tidal wave. Its harness jerked, twisted, and was crushed, the battery beneath its belly smashed flat and showering the ground with chemicals, the under-turret beaten inside out and smeared with the blood and entrails of the gunner within it. The dragon hit at an angle, carving a furrow like a giant plow, snapping inch-thick harness cables like twine, spinning a half-circle around as he slid, chin-down on the ground, his tail shattering a fence to kindling, overturning and bending a lorry in half, and finally coming to rest atop an overturned storage shed, which it crushed flat like an accordion.

For a moment or two, the dragon did not move.

And then, like a monster emerging from the black lagoon, steam began to puff from its nostrils, and it opened its enormous eyes, and let out a low, feral growl, that shook the very earth it lay upon. It twitched, it heaved, it shook, and slowly, it uprose, its entire side scraped raw by the impact, its right foreleg shaky and uneven, its throat bleeding freely from the bite marks Frostfell had laid upon it, yet nevertheless it rose, alive despite the horrendous battering it had sustained, glistening in the afternoon sun, covered in black and red blood, the gore of its mutilated crew, and the wreckage of its shattered equipment and harness. It rose to all fours, opening its wings like a tent unfurling in the breeze, limping as it turned around to face where the Wendigo had landed, and it opened wide its jaws and roared, roared like a lion, like a wounded and battered predator that still possessed teeth enough to send anything to hell, and though it did not take off (could not?), it stared down Frostfell as if daring the White Devil to come at it again, and opened its mouth to roar again.

But at that instant, its roar was overwhelmed by one infinitely greater...

*-------------------------------------------------------------*

On the other side of the battlefield, the Aufseher that was being fired upon found itself in an absolute panic. Two lightweights were buzzing around it like mosquitos drawing blood with strike after strike, and the 37mm on the ground threw shells at it unfettered and without hesitation. Unable to sustain that level of battery for long, it broke off its own attack run, aborting the assault on the ground emplacement, flying away, desperately screaming for its supporting dragons to cover it. Several responded.

The third Kampfritter, the one engaged by neither Frostfell nor the Parnassian, was making for the Aufseher as fast as it could, its crew already trading shots with the anti-dragon batteries below. Aufsehers could be spooked into flight, but a Kampfritter could simply ignore the protestations of a lightweight or two, as well as a 37 long enough to crush all three to powder. As its fellow on the ground was doing, the Kampfritter opened its mouth to roar.

Instead it screamed.

A low, tenebrous sound emerged from nothing whatsoever, like a pipe organ out of tune, a terrible sound that brought every head around to it. It grew and grew and grew in intensity, if not in volume, until suddenly a harmonic resonance was reached, and as though a switch had been flipped, everything exploded at once. The turrets on the Kampfritter cracked and blew up, as though struck by weapons fire, windows and windshields of vehicles and buildings near the ground shattered and flew in every direction. Aboard the Kampfritter, men screamed and clutched at their heads as blood vessels in their eyes and ears ruptured and poured forth, and they rolled about on dragonback or fell overboard in their madness. The dragon itself let out a plaintive wail, its wins faltered in mid-air, and just as it was trying to stabilize itself and come back around, an enormous figure, black as pitch, materialized out of the smoke to its right, and slammed into it like a missile.

The Kampfritter rolled over like a barrel as Temeraire collided with it, and lost a hundred feet of altitude in a second and a half, before managing to right itself and turn about. The dragons did not grapple, but Temeraire darted in and out at it, slashing with long, sharpened claws, laying open scales and armor with each slash, evading the frenzied strikes of the Kampfritter in return. A Bluejacket raced in from the other side to assist it, but was expertly cut off by the arrival of a Golden Anglewing from the same pall of smoke, which neatly beheaded the Bluejacket's radioman and forced the Prussian dragon to dive.

The Aufseher, no longer attended by its allies, screamed as it turned to flee, blood dripping from its hide like a seive. It's fellow Aufseher, though unharmed itself did not dare the fire of the gun that had lain low its comrade, and turned away instead, moving to help its injured comrade make it back to the channel.

*-------------------------------------------------------------*

The Swabian that had been chasing Frostfell had no idea what to do, and neither did his captain. To engage Frostfell alone, even at a high speed ram, was tantamount to suicide. It did not follow the two dragons into the ground, but instead came about to try and assist, either by engaging Frostfell from above, or simply attacking in support of whatever the Kampfritter chose to do next. It got to do neither, for the chaos of the intervention of Temeraire and Galadriel had drawn the Bluejackets off of their pursuit of Æquitas as he was trying to penetrate the squadron again, and Æquitas' first sighted target was the Swabian.

Swabians liked to ram headon into their targets. Malachites prefered indirect routes. Æquitas buzzed past the Swabian just in time for the topgunner to reveal himself by opening fire, and having his skull staved in for his trouble as Æquitas drop kicked the topgunner turret before driving both foreclaws into the Swabian's back, between its wings. The Swabian buckled like a splinter of wood hit by a sledgehammer, and flipped end over end, righting itself just in time to be struck across the face by Æquitas' hindclaws. It screamed and spun out of control and managed to right itself and retain flight just in time to avoid pancaking on the tarmac, and by the time it came about, it had lost its height advantage as well as being half-blinded by its own blood. Still it rose up again charging back into the air to get at the Malachite, all thoughts of supporting the Kampfritter against Frostfell flung bodily out the window.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Nex took a galling hit from the other Swabian, but Parnassians could take such things, and the Swabian bit back cries as Nex did its damndest to tear out the German Dragon's innards. The good news was that, while they didn't have the speed necessary to beat the Swabian's brains out, Nex managed to smash the smaller dragon into the dirt of the covert, lending his weight and power to the impact to batter and crush the German Middleweight.

The bad news was that the Kampfritter Nex had been facing before got the same idea.

The Kampfritter came down right on top of Nex at an angle designed to obviate the damage to the Swabian beneath him. It did not work, and the Swabian screamed as both heavyweights landed atop it. The giant German beast did not however care, as it tore into its prey like a rabid wolverine, intending to cast Nex' entrails all across the English countryside.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------*

To the Kampfritter's captain, to say nothing of the Kampfritter or the Aufseher, the move Jeb had done was impossible if not downright illusionary. Dragons simply did not move like that in Europe. As the Kampfritter was presently engaged in fighting Temeraire, it did not matter overmuch to him, but in reality no dragon should have been able to predict what Jebediah had done, for the Devil's Reverse was simply not a matter that any of them should have had experience with...

... except one did.

Jebediah and Judith executed their attack run perfectly, lacerating the Special Weapon dragon's side, and laying it open, panicking it into running for its life away from the smaller slate dragon with the hooked wings. Nothing else should have been able to stand in their way, save that a single red-painted Speckled Bavarian had somehow, in watching them dive, made an instantaneous calculation in its head of vectors, momentum, and speed, and had dove straight for a point many hundreds of feet below and ahead of it, a plotted intercept course that it believed would place him right in front of the Smoke Devil as it fled.

Albatros was accurate to the yard.

As though magic had been invoked, suddenly Albatros was right there, appearing across Jebediah's path like a conjured spirit of malevolence. A larger dragon had lookouts to spot with, but Jebediah had none, and his captain had, by necessity, been keeping her head down during the reverse. Albatros, half-again larger than Jebediah, might as well have simply materialized from thin air for all Jeb or Judith was concerned, and with an unhurried, practiced strike, he launched himself at Jebediah with both foreclaws and his right wing, the latter sheathed in razor-sharp, articulated blades, intending to simply grab the smaller American dragon, and slice off anything that presented itself.

*-------------------------------------------------------------------*

Over to one side, lost among the screams and roars of dragons many times larger, another battle entirely was taking place, one of much smaller scope, but infinitely high stakes for those concerned.

The smallest dragon present, and by some measures the most lethal, Capricorn, the Tasmanian Venomspitter, was not in the air. Venomspitters were stupid, but that was not the reason Capricorn remained on the ground, for even the stupidest dragon knew better than to be caught terrestrially during a fight. Capricorn was not in the air because he could not fly.

The little yellow-and-brown dust-colored dragon was backed into a corner between two sheds, his sides lacerated and bleeding, more blood trickling from his ears. His wings were spread out, but they too were lacerated, and either he could not fly, or he did not wish to. No slash of a claw or bite had done this damage, but a bomb, a 500 kilogram bomb that had detonated next to him as he cowered over his captain had done so, tearing his hide up terribly, rupturing his eardrums, and nearly knocking him out.

Captain Kelly lay on the ground unconscious, his RAAF uniform stained with blood, red this time. Drag marks indicated where Capricorn had pulled him into the corner formed by two storage sheds, and lacking any better form of cover, was now literally standing over him, back to the wall, tail raised, and teeth bared, facing a pair of German Leuchtkaffers that were standing off in front of him, watching and darting in and out, looking for an opening. Though each of the pitch dark Leuchtkaffers was larger than Capricorn by a wide margin, neither one attacked directly, for fear of the globs of venom that already littered the ground between Capricorn and the Germans. Though clearly badly hurt, and seriously outmatched, Capricorn did not retreat or attempt to escape, not with his captain laying motionless beneath him, and he barked and returned glare for glare and roar for roar as the two captains on the backs of the Leuchtkaffers shouted to one another in German and prepared to make a coordinated attack to overwhelm the little Australian dragon, so deadly in the air, so vulnerable on the ground. Capricorn could not understand them or what was going on, save that he was hurt, his captain hurt even worse, and consequently, even as Aufsehers thirty times his size fled in panic, he stood his ground and spat in the dirt again and again to keep the Leuchtkaffers back, and hoped, in his own broken way, for some kind of miracle.

[Charon]

Kunja's eyes had stayed fixed on the Aufseher even as it pulled away, intent on what he saw as his target and ignoring much of the rest of the world. Jake kept his eyes open for his dragon and it wasn't hard to spot Albatros as he began his dive.

"Kunja! Get ready, here comes Albatros and he's going for Jeb!" Jake's eyes followed Albatros's dive, trying not to whistle in awe of the single-minded ferosity and perfect dive of the enemy while Kunja began to break into his own dive.

Jake's eyes were a second behind Albatros and that was why he noticed something odd. Two Leuchtkaffer were on the ground and trying to get at something. But what could they... Jake brought his Binoculars up even as Kunja began to drop. It was Cap.

"Jack! Turn! Get those Leuchts!" Kunja glanced away from his worthy opponent and spotted the dragons Jake was talking about, and his enhanced eyes spotted Cap infront of them from their angle. The Victorian did not need to be told twice.

The lightweight shifted his wings again as Jake commanded and the pair turned into a wide dropping circle to get around the pair of german dragons so they wouldn't see the Victorian that was preparing to pounce on them.

Jake grinned as he lowered himself against Kunja, sparing a pained glance back at Judith who he had left to the mercies of Albatros. "Let's show those Germans why you do not fuck with Aussies."

Kunja executed his maneuvers well and ended up slightly behind and to the right of the Leuchtkaffers. The gray Victorian openned his wings at the last possible moment, breaking off a good deal of his momentum as he was about on top of the rightmost Leuchtkaffer and let out a roar that seemed as though it came from the very depths of hell itself. Kunja landed his full weight into the side of the much smaller german dragon, claws extended and ripping furiously at the other dragon's wing as well as whatever he could get his claws on while keeping away from the captain's seat. Jake meanwhile popped up from behind Kunja, his gun pointed directly at the other German captain, trying his best to hide everything on the gun except the barrel. The Australian prayed that the other German would be too stunned to realize that the only thing pointed at him was a paintball gun.

The Australian spoke one of the few German phrases he knew. "Hände oben, Drache unten."

[LadyTevar]

Jebediah's time was short and options were few as the larger crimson dragon appeared out of the chaos, claws leading and something shining along his right alar with deadly intent. With little choice, he barrelrolled left, trying to protect Judith as much as possible. The sudden turn didn't save him, as one of Albatros' claws struck his shoulder solidly while the wingblade scraped scales from his flank and belly, slicing through the simple flight harness with terrifying ease.

The weighty war-harness had been removed earlier, after the morning practice, and there had been no time with the sudden strike for Jebediah to even find it, much less attempt to crawl into it. Judith felt the sudden weightless shifting as the harness broke free and dropped the shotgun to grab for the spines of Jeb's neck, her other hand snatching out her knife and cutting at the line holding her. The knife, standard issue for the USAF, had a hook on the spine of the blade just for this purpose.

The leather harness slid towards the ground, taking the shotgun with it, and there was nothing Jebediah could do to help Judith. The hit to his shoulder was forgotten, even as the force of Albatros' strike pushed the Smoke Devil further into his roll, leaving Judith dangling over the bombed out feeding ground 400ft below.

Judith's hands were calloused from hard work; honest farm work, as well as housework. She could hold a rifle or catch and wring a chicken's neck with ease. She could climb a tree, or dangle off a grapevine as it swung out over the swimmin' hole. But there was only so much one hand could do. Her grip slipped. Frantically her other hand, still clutching the knife, stretched out for purchase, but the blade skittered harmlessly over Jebediah's scales. It was a long way down.

"JUDITH!!!!"

[Jason_Firewalker]

The larger Kampfritter slammed into Nex, almost knocking the wind out of her. Almost being the key word. The injured Parnassian roared to life after a millisecond of gathering her mind and rolled onto her back, against the splattered goo that was a Swabian just a few moments ago. She rolled over three of her side men and two of her top men but the rest were able to disengage and move their placements in time to not get squsihed between the dragon and the ground. In pure rage the Parnassian started to tear into the neck of the Kampfritter with ferocity she had previously never known. She was more injured then she had ever been, in more pain then she had ever known, bleeding more then she had bleed up until that point and yet she summoned up her spirit and went on the assault. At that moment her radio man, Lt. Niles, got the bright idea to test his radio systems. Belying all possability it still worked, and he hopped on the horn, his thick welsh accent coming though on the British Air Command line, "This is Nex Paciscor to all Allied dragons and emplacements in the vicinity of our covert, we are under attack. Repeat we are under heavy Jerry attack."

John, almost squished between Nex and the Kampfritter and then Nex and the ground was shaken, his left arm broken. Pulling out his service revolver, a custom made Webly Mk VI .455 with custom wood grip, he yelled to his men "TAKE THE JERRY DRAGON!"

[rhoenix]

"This is turning into a very bad day," sighed Veritas.

"Yeah," said Captain Braithwaite grimly.

[Cynical Cat]

Frostfell was fast, clever, vicious, and strong. His captain and trainer was one of the best in the world. He had good reasons for his confidence, but his arrogance did push into hubris, especially when Nathan wasn't around to reign in his worst excesses and this time he had pushed too far.

It wasn't unreasonable for him to believe he could escape, but the bloody German dragon had managed to cling to him. Snarling and raging, he had dragged the White Devil down and Frostfell had to change from letting him fall, to breaking his own. At the last moment he broke away, but it wasn't enough. Impact.

In this his lack of mass was an advantage. The Kampfritter hit the ground much harder than Frostfell had, which was still too damn hard even with with the Wendigo doing his cat imitation and minimizing the damage. Every bone in his body vibrated painfully and ached. His limbs shook.

He took a moment to ready himself and toss away that bloody German gun. Then he heard the roar of the Kampfritter. Frostfell was in pain. Nathan might be dead. He had suffered set backs and disrespect from dragons who were not his equal. He wanted nothing more than to share his fury with the world.

He hit the Kampfritter like a white lightning bolt, ripping and tearing.

[General Havoc]

*WHAM*

The Leuchtkaffer on the ground did not know what hit him, as Kunja, a miniaturized Queen Victoria's Reaper, landed on top of him. Though both dragons were lightweights, Kunja was still more than 50% larger than his prey, barreling it over onto its side, slamming its captain against the ground as it shrieked and yelped and tried to kick and rise up again.

The other German's captain was in fact so stunned that for a second he just sat there, blinking at Jake. Fortunately for him however, his dragon was not so mentally encumbered, and it growled and sprung at Kunja without bidding from its captain, colliding with the larger dragon and attempting to pin him between both Germans.

It might have worked.

Except in leaping at Kunja, the second Leuchtkaffer had taken its eyes off of Capricorn, whose reaction time was considerably slower than either German, but not so slow as he was unable to act. As the second Leuchtkaffer tore into Kunja's flank, it was itself torn into in turn as Capricorn slammed into it from in front, knocking it off Kunja and over onto the ground. Both dragons rolled through the dirt, scrambling onto and over one another. The Leuchtkaffer was larger and stronger than Capricorn, and had the benefit of combat armor, but Capricorn's very bite was instantly fatal, and the Leuchtkaffer knew it, forcing it to keep well clear of Capricorn's jaws as both dragons roared and slashed and scrambled for position.

Meanwhile, behind Capricorn, the first Leuchtkaffer, in desperation, lashed out not at Kunja himself, but at Jake, in the hopes of buying itself time to escape that it would otherwise be unlikely to obtain.

*----------------------------------------------------*

Time hung in mid-air as Judith fell from the back of her dragon, but even before his own captain could react, Albatros, who had followed every blow and twist of his wingblades, was already moving.

Instantly forgetting Jebediah, Albatros folded his wings, jackknifed, and dove, pitching down towards the falling Captain. In free fall alone, Albatros could never have caught up, but he pumped his wings and propelled himself downwards through the air with the poise of an expert aerobatics-dragon, and only bare seconds before they both were to hit the ground, the red-painted Speckled Bavarian reached out with a foreclaw, snatched Judith out of the air with it, and spread its wings wide in a crash-brake attempt.

He was successful. Barely.

The Bavarian decelerated with the force of a cannon, skimming the very grass on the ground as it pulled up, its tail carving a furrow through the planted fields. Spitting stalks of wheat from his mouth as he slowly regained what altitude he could, Albatros only then looked down to ascertain if the American captain he had seized was alive or not, and as his captain watched for any sign of incoming bandits, he addressed Judith directly in english with a calm, placid draconic voice, lightly accented.

"You should be more careful, Fraulein," said the dragon with the barest hint of a smirk at his own achievement. "Vill you ask your dragon to surrender, please?"

It was clear from the tone of his voice that he did not anticipate anything but an affirmative answer.

[Cynical Cat]

Nathan swiveled the cannon to try and track the Bluejacket. Not the world's best angle for a shot, but beggars couldn't be choosers. He fired and thunder roared around him. "Load!"

[General Havoc]

The splattered goo beneath Nex was not the Swabian, for not even an impact like that could crush a middleweight dragon to mulch. It had crushed the Swabian's crew largely to goo, save for the captain, whose leg had been amputated above the knee by the gyrating dragons, and who was laying unconscious in a pool of blood next to the barely-moving form of his dragon. The Kampfritter and Parnassian nearby fought on without even considering them. Nax' captain had called for help on the radio, but there remained nothing in the allied arsenal to deploy to help them, and the desperate attempt to take the other dragon was hampered by the fact that Nax' crew was smaller than the Kampfritter's, and Nax had taken casualties already from her previous combats. Though the Parnassian gave as good as it got, Kampfritters, as always, were built to take it, and the few crew able to leap over onto the enemy dragon were promptly massacred or pinned down by the fully intact antipersonel weaponry aboard the German heavyweight. It wasn't long before the captain of the Kampfritter ordered his own men to counterattack.

Seven men, ready and well armed with machine pistols, tar-coated grenades, handspikes, and even a flamethrower, leapt over onto Nax and laid to with their weapons. These were not crewmen armed with anything that came to hand, but Falschirmjaegar, elite Luftwaffe storm troopers, used as parachutists or boarding parties by German heavyweights. A full squad now deployed and immediately set to work destroying all resistance. A dozen crew followed behind them, mopping up and pacifying and trying to avoid being gutted or shot. Some failed, and their bodies crumpled to the dragonback or plumetted to the ground, but not enough, and it wasn't long before four of the Falschirmjaegar, accompanied by three or four more Germans from the crew, were approaching where Nax' captain was.

"Surrender!" cried the German captain in pidgin english from his position on the Kampfritter, "Surrender, Tommy! Surrender!"

[Jason_Firewalker]

Realizing all was almost lost, John got a brilliant idea, or an entirely crazy one. "Wenn ich sterbe, tun Sie so die ganze Sie. Ãœbergeben Sie mir." Raising his Webley pistol to his brow, John cocked it back. "Nex, if I die, kill every Jerry you can. Screw the dragon, take the men."

[LadyTevar]

"You should be more careful, Fraulein," said the dragon with the barest hint of a smirk at his own achievement. "Vill you ask your dragon to surrender, please?"

Unsurprisingly, it took Judith a few moments to recover her breath enough to speak. She had to get over her body's shock that she was still alive. Slowly she came aware of her situation. She was gently but firmly in the red-painted dragon's grip, although by luck or accident her left arm was free, and she had somehow kept a death-grip on her knife. Wheat was stuck in her long red-gold hair, something annoying that she couldn't stop to deal with at the moment, and the German dragon was speaking polite, if accented, English to her.

A spark of anger flared, followed quickly by a flash of wisdom before she spoke. Judith took a deep breath (or as deep as she could with a dragon's claws around her) and reminded herself to be at least a little polite to the huge dragon that stopped her from splatting on the ground.

"Ah'm thinkin' Ah've no choice otherwise," Judith said politely, meeting Albratros' eyes. Her own were still wide from her frightful fall. "T'was right polite of you ta catch me," she continued, before her voice got hard and icy. "Since ya caused it, ya o'ergrown mudpuppy!"

The spate of temper passed as Judith took another deep breath, then let out an ear-splitting summons. "JEBEDIAH!"

***

The Smoke Devil had been flying on Albratros' tail, frantic to get to his captain. His mind was reeling, reliving his inability to save Jack McClung not 3 years before, and now to possibly lose Judith was almost more than he could stand. "Jack, Ah've gone n' lost our babygirl..." the blue/white rippled dragon muttered between snatches of the Lord's Prayer and Psalms 23.

When he heard Judith's voice, his head snapped up and he lunged forward, streaking under Albatros' belly and matching speeds so he could look up at Judith, trapped in the Red Baron's claws. "Judith! Ya'al'right? Ya'kay? .. GIVE HER BACK YA RAPSCALLION!"

[Charon]

*WHAM*

The Leuchtkaffer on the ground did not know what hit him, as Kunja, a miniaturized Queen Victoria's Reaper, landed on top of him. Though both dragons were lightweights, Kunja was still more than 50% larger than his prey, barreling it over onto its side, slamming its captain against the ground as it shrieked and yelped and tried to kick and rise up again.

The other German's captain was in fact so stunned that for a second he just sat there, blinking at Jake. Fortunately for him however, his dragon was not so mentally encumbered, and it growled and sprung at Kunja without bidding from its captain, colliding with the larger dragon and attempting to pin him between both Germans.

It might have worked.

Except in leaping at Kunja, the second Leuchtkaffer had taken its eyes off of Capricorn, whose reaction time was considerably slower than either German, but not so slow as he was unable to act. As the second Leuchtkaffer tore into Kunja's flank, it was itself torn into in turn as Capricorn slammed into it from in front, knocking it off Kunja and over onto the ground. Both dragons rolled through the dirt, scrambling onto and over one another. The Leuchtkaffer was larger and stronger than Capricorn, and had the benefit of combat armor, but Capricorn's very bite was instantly fatal, and the Leuchtkaffer knew it, forcing it to keep well clear of Capricorn's jaws as both dragons roared and slashed and scrambled for position.

Meanwhile, behind Capricorn, the first Leuchtkaffer, in desperation, lashed out not at Kunja himself, but at Jake, in the hopes of buying itself time to escape that it would otherwise be unlikely to obtain.

Kunja had only grimaced slightly as the free Leuchtkaffer had crashed into his flanks, and worry over being double-teamed had crossed his mind briefly before Cap's own attack had freed Kunja to focus on his prey.

The Leuchtkaffer caught in Kunja's grasp was entirely out of his league, even though Kunja was only slightly larger. Kunja was the larger dragon, he was the heavier dragon, he was the stronger dragon, and perhaps more than any other lightweight on the field he was built for extended close-in combat, and to top it all off Kunja was still in the dominant position on top of the Leuchtkaffer. The only advantage the Leuchtkaffer had was that it was far more nimble in the air, but they were no longer in the air.

Kunja had never been in more than a play-fight while on the ground, but much of what he knew of fighting was still easily translated, and he didn't need to worry about eventually slamming into the ground. As the Leuchtkaffer made a desperate move on his captain Kunja's eyes flared in pure rage. Before, they had simply been the enemy, after he had seen them attacking the injured Capricorn they had been villains. Now it had gone for his captain, and there would be no mercy.

Kunja rolled his back some as his arm raised high, the move put Jake safely out of the way though it exposed his foreleg and the Leuchtkaffer's long talons scraped down Kunja's arm, cutting deeply. Kunja was built to take damage though and with a mighty force the Australian grabbed his foes foreleg as it was coming back down and slammed it into the ground, holding it there like a vice-clamp.

Kunja's other clawed foreleg grabbed the thrashing German lightweight at the base of it's neck and held, careful once again to avoid injuring it's captain, and then the Aussie stared directly at the German. "You, do not, attack, another dragon's captain..."

And with that Kunja grabbed the Leuchtkaffer mid-neck with his jaws and started to shake it like a terrier shook a rat.

Jake didn't have much of a shot with the way he was being swung around on the back of Kunja, but for a gun like he had accuracy was not a concern. Jake leaned back, entrusting his dragon to deal with this fight as he focused on Cap's fight. As soon as the enemy dragon was the more visible target, and maybe if he had a clear shot at it's captain, Jake held down the trigger to his paintball gun and filled the air between them with pellets of blue paint.

[General Havoc]

The crimson dragon laughed as its wings bit through the air. "I believe, fraulein, zat your general was ze one to say, 'War is hell'? Catching you was ze least I could do, as ze alternative would be to have to kill your dragon."

Albatros' captain gave a sharp shout, and Albatros swerved violently to the right. Moments later, Jebediah came up beneath, pacing the larger German lightweight as he called to his captain and shouted insults at Albatros. The German merely smirked as Jeb called him, of all things, a 'rapscallion'.

"Amerikaner..." said the dragon with a chuckle, before turning its head back to Jebediah. "Your Captain is quite intact," he yelled in his same accented tone. "Und if you vant her to remain zat way, I vould suggest you stay back und do exactly as I command, ja?"

"Business of war," remarked Albatros in a quieter tone, intended for Judith, after he had finished delivering his ultimatum. "You understand, I hope? Ze alternative is to kill you both, and who wants zat, eh? Now, I vould appreciate it if you vould ask your dragon to please do as I say?"

*---------------------------------------------------*

On the ground where the Heavyweights fought, it was a scene of Armageddon. Frostfell tore into the wounded Kampfritter before him like a nightmare given form, as Nax' captain desperately tried to scare off the Falschirmjaegar deployed from a second beast.

Everything within fifty yards of Frostfell was flattened and beaten down as he and the Kampfritter rolled about on the earth. Larger and more durable it might have been, but the Kampfritter had taken more than even one of its titanic size and strength could manage, and Frostfell had the upper hand, laying blow after blow down upon its battered hide and frame. Still the pain-maddened Kampfritter refused to concede, for it perceived its captain's life at stake, and it fought on, on to the last extremities of its own constitution and capacity, roaring, biting, hacking, slashing returning every blow with one just as hard. Frostfell could take such a beating, but the blows told, coating the formerly-white dragon in black blood, its own and the Kampfritter's mixed together.

The Kampfritter would have fought to the death no doubt, but its captain had been thrown clear of the fighting when Frostfell charged it, and slowly he managed to return to his feet and raced towards the gyrating giants, arriving just as the Kampfritter staggered back from Frostfell's blows and collapsed to the ground, staggering to rise again and fight more, growling and snarling and spitting blood to the ground.

But before it could move, the captain ran in front of it, between Frostfell and his own dragon, and facing the White demon of the Canadas, shouted in very pidgin English.

"STOP!" shouted the Captain, to the apparent astonishment of his own dragon. "No... no make dead! Nicht töten! Wir aufgeben! Surrender! No make dead!"

The dragon looked as stunned as anyone, but it simply didn't have the means left to stop its captain from saving its life... or at least trying to.

[LadyTevar]

"AH'm a'right, Jeb!" Judith yelled down to her dragon, although she could see that Jebediah was twitchy. It hurt... seeing him that way. She saw it before .. with her pa. No... she couldn't do that to him. Not again.

"Jeb..... Surrender."

***

Jebediah heard, not just Judith's words, but the tone of voice, the one that she got whenever she thought she'd let people down. The one that she'd had... the day Jack died. His own head lowered, although he still kept pace with Albatros.

" ... Ah Surrender."

[Cynical Cat]

Frostfell reared up over the battered German dragon. he showed bloody fangs as he turned to the German captain and plucked him off the ground. His accent was terrible, but the Canadian dragon's German was comprehensible. "Stay here and behave and your captain will be fine."

The Wendigo turned and headed back to the airbase. He would drop the German off with some soldiers and then help with the moping up. He hurt all over, but he was still Frostfell. Tangling with another heavy weight would get him mauled, but a light or a medium was another matter.