Operation: Marraketh Seg #6, "Gratuitous destruction" ---- Shad landed next to Calculus and his fearless band of Rangers, and ignored their gawking as the humans on his back scrambled off eagerly, not *quite* dropping to their knees and kissing the ground. *Maybe we overdid that flight a little....* {Nah. We were in a hurry, weren't we? Besides, it's been way too long since we last flew for pure recreation.} *Point.* "Hey, is that _your_ dragon? And where's Kapella?" A loud voice interrupted his/their reverie. Shad swiveled his head to regard the speaker, a rather bland-looking persona decked out in a bright red outfit, who was glaring straight at him in between trying to remain upright with what amounted to several hundred kilos of assorted sharp objects on his person, but what *really* caused Shad's eyebrows to try to make a break for low orbit were the '[TM]' and '(c)' tags on various pieces of clothing and weapons. {Oooooooookaaaaaaay.....} Shad half-opened his maw to say, "I'm *mine*, thank you very much." but Nexx was way ahead of him. "It's not an 'it', it's a 'he' and he's not *my* dragon, he's Shadur. You know, TRES, Zeta squad? And we didn't find Kapella, there were no records of him making it to this side in Chi-Lin and Mal didn't mention him in his message." Shad smiled at the as-yet-unknown to him speaker, doing his very best "I'm a harmless sort, really, don't mind the fangs and claws" impression and was rewarded with a very satisfying gulp and paling. "Mal sent a message? When was this?" Calc interrupted. "'Bout an hour ago." Nexx shrugged, "Anyways, Kap may just be stuck back at HQ. We've got priority stuff right now." She raised her voice and addressed the entire gathering. "Here's the basic plan, no time to argue: We've got 45 minutes to get to the city before Shad launches a solo air attack as distraction. With a little luck the guards'll be too busy putting down fires and panicking to bother us much while we head for the palace. Once we're in, we move fast: locate and rescue Kat, find Mal and get the shit out of there. Anything gets in the way, take it out fast but no random destruction. That's Shad's department this time around. "Any questions? No? Good. Let's GO people!" The assembled Rangers stood to attention, then started packing and moving out. ****** Rhye plains, Marraketh 45 minutes since the rangers left ****** *Time's up.* {Remember to keep the collateral damage down. Kat won't be too happy if she finds out we levelled half her home town to rescue her.} *Blegh, you're no fun. [amusement]* Spreading his enormous wings, Shad crouched, then leapt into the air. Hovering a few meters above the ground, he oriented himself and headed off to the distant city. *** Guard duty patrolling outside the walls of a city that hasn't been at war, much less attacked, for centuries would seem to many as a dull and pointless job. Not so to Nertin and Hunick, mainly because they didn't have the imagination for boredom, but mainly because their natural attention span made a certain hyperactive ferret look like a chess master. Their special friend Barney had told them to do whatever Sid told them to do, and Sid told them to patrol the walls. So they patrolled. They were on their sixth lap around the city so far when Nertin suddenly piped up, and walked to the wall. His companion discreetly turned away while he unbuttoned his fly. As he did so, however, he became aware first of a sound like a strangled scream of fright from behind him and then the sun being blotted out in a large area around him. He half-turned around and saw an enormous winged monster, black as the night, swooping down on him and the city beyond, flames erupting from its maw. It was a good thing his pants were already down, or he'd have wet them as the flames struck home and the guard post almost directly above them erupted into a blazing inferno. Roaring at the top of lungs, Shad shot over the city, setting two more guard houses ablaze with gouts of orange-blue flame before pulling up and banking for another pass. In retrospect, it was a pretty amazing thing to witness. One moment, a city bustling with normal, peaceful, productive, albeit spongified, activity. The next, absolute chaos, with between them less time than it takes to blink. *Mindless activity to mindless chaos. There's probably something philosophical about this.* {Shut up and torch.} Shad climbed sunward, then wheeled at the apex and dove again, this time swooping low enough to snatch the straw roof of a barracks building in his hind claws as he shot past, only to drop it on a watchtower on the far wall, smashing both, then setting the remains of the barracks ablaze on the return swoop. What little defence could be organized (go on, *you* try fending off a 30-foot flying firebreathing monster that can outfight tanks using nothing but medieval technology and an "army" with the collective IQ of a gnat) was either scattered before a second shot could be taken, or in the case of the occasional archer, simply ignored. {Tone it down a bit, we're not here to destroy the whole place, just buy Nexx enough time to get to the castle.} *You, sir, are No Fun At All. [mocking pout]* {Well, one of us has to keep his head on straight. Look out, catapult at three o'clock.} *I saw it.* With an almost casual puff of hellfire, Shad burned the contraption to cinders. *What's next?* [Shad,] intruded a voice from outside their mind. Shad blinked, then narrowed his eyes. He knew that voice... {Calc?} [No, the Wizard of Oz.] Calc's mental voice was decidedly irritable. [We're inside the castle. The rest went on ahead already; Nexx asked me to stay behind at the gates to lead you in. I've got your bags with me, so get your scaly self down here pronto!] {Keep your pantyhose on, we're on our way.} Shad folded a wing and turned in a tight circle, heading down toward the castle. About halfway to the ground, the entire world seemed to shake with the sudden sound of the Hellwyrm's War Chant. o/~ I LUV YOU.... o/~ *YEAAAGH! MAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOP!* {GET YOUR CLAWS OFF YOUR EARS! WATCH THE LANDIIIIIIIING--} With one mind trying frantically to fold both wings over his ears, always a bad move in mid-air, and the other equally frantically trying to use those same wings to land properly, the actual landing was about as far from "proper" as an enraged Kzin is from "careful". A proper landing would have left more buildings intact, and wouldn't have involved using the castle gates to slide to a halt against. This landing did however solve the problem of getting inside. Calculus coughed twice, cleared the dust from his robes as best he could, and climbed over the remains of the gates to where Shad's neck was sticking out. "Shad? Shad! Are you conscious?" The only immediate reply was a heartfelt groan. "Wake up, dammit! We've got to get moving!" Another groan. Calc sighed and concentrated, pulling a Huge Mallet from HammerSpace. "I'm going to count to three and if you don't snap out of it then I'm going to -" "" came a cry from behind him. Calc didn't understand the words, but the tone of voice, combined with the guard uniforms he saw as he turned around, gave him the general gist. He smiled and surreptitiously tried to prod Shad with a foot. No response. Damn. "Excuse me, have you ph33red the penguin today?" "" "" "'penguin'?" Calc caught the last sentence, and grinned. "Allow me to explain..." There was a puff of smoke and a smell of herring, and when the smoke cleared a 30-foot penguin stood where Calc had been. It squawked once at the guards, who decided that they'd had enough shocks for today, and bolted. As Calc watched them run off, there was the sound of rubble collapsing behind him. As he turned around he saw Shad lying there, in his human form. Shad grinned nastily. "Calc, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it." Calc groaned. "If you can make lousy puns like that, you're obviously fine. Get up, get moving." "Yeahyeahyeah," Shad muttered as he dusted himself off, "Got my backpack?" "It's over there," Calc pointed with a flipper. "What do you keep in there anyways? Felt like it weighed a ton." "Blah, random stuff. Pair of heavy pistols, twin lance, extra clips, medkit, couple demolition charges, some thermite..." "..." "Just kidding." "Ah. Good." "... About the demolition charges. 'Chunker grenades work better anyway." "..." "Stop standing there like a stunned penguin, get back in form and let's head on in!" "Lemme get a celery stick first... Did I really just say that?" "FOCUS dammit! That song is grating on your brain!" "Why isn't it affecting you?" "I'm not listening to it." "And how the hell did you manage that?" "Shad's singing every song we know the words to at the top of his 'lungs'. Enough to keep me from hearing you-know-what." "Any suggestions for those among us with only one personality?" "Just sing out loud. I'll start: o/~ I'm your only friend / I'm not your only friend / but I'm a little glowing friend / but really I'm not actually your friend... o/~ "o/~ Blue canary in the attic by the light switch / who watches over you / make a little birdhouse in your soul...o/~" Singing, they ran off into the castle. *** "o/~ Millions of peaches / peaches for me o/~ Whichway?" "Left. o/~ Bangkok, oriental setting and the city don't know what the city is getting o/~" They ran on. "o/~ They say he's got a lot of chutzpah and / he's really quite hip o/~ Up or down?" "Down. o/~ Join us now and share the software...o/~" "Calc, I'm going to *KILL YOU*!" "Shutupandsing. o/~ Join us now and you'll be free, hacker... o/~ "o/~ Cool for a week / and then reheat it / and hope that / you don't have to eat it ... o/~ whoa, what the hell?" Shad trailed off as they burst through a doorway into a room lined with cell doors. "Call me crazy, but this does NOT look like the throne room. Told you down wasn't the right way," Cal muttered. "Look, YOU were the one who said we didn't have time to mess with that double squad of palace guards charging at us," Shad retorted. "Well, we didn't." "We probably lost more time getting lost on this detour than we would have toasting the guards." "Ungh." Shad and Calc blinked for a second before realising that neither of them had been the one moaning, and therefore there had to be a third person in the room. It turned out to be a he, and a badly wounded "he" at that. "Whoa, who's this?" Shad asked, kneeling next to the body and turning him over gently to get a better look. Calc recognised the face immediately, but needed a second to remember the name. "Hold on, hold on... That's Katze's roommate, Josh Something. We were investigating him because we thought he was a plant for the Wyrm. Guess we were right." Shad looked the body over. "So who shot him if he's a Wyrm Minion? I don't think anyone we took with us uses crossbows much. Hrmm, this wound's pretty bad, but he's still alive. Calc, could you hand over that medkit? This arrow has got to come out..." Working swiftly but unhurried, Shad started treating the wound. Somewhere halfway through, the Hellwyrm Chant cut out like someone had hit the 'off' switch. Calc looked up and perked an eyebrow. "Guess someone finally got to the PR system and took an axe to it." "Good. Gossamers." *** "This should keep him from dying for now, but we'll need to get him to some better facilities. That'll have to wait until after we rescue Katze, though... And he's our only lead. Hand me the smelling salts, willya?" Calc fished around in the medkit, then handed them over asking "Are you sure this is a good idea? We can't trust him." "If you have a better suggestion now would be a good time. Come on, kid, wakey time..." A few seconds later Josh's breathing turned into a snort, then a weak cough. "Wha..?" "Don't try to move, kid, you'll tear your bandages and that left lung of yours can't handle much more. Quick question and one chance to answer: Where is Katze?" "... J.. Jihaddi? Have... to save her. Still time... Throne room..." "We had that figured. How do we /get/ to the throne room?" Calc interrupted. Josh feebly raised a hand to point at a door in the far end of the room before drifting out of consciousness again. Shad looked at him, then up at Calc. "Still think we can't trust him?" Calc growled in disgust. "Bingo. Unfortunately, you're right as usual. We don't have any realistic alternatives. Let's go." Shad grinned. "I knew you hadn't lost your faith in Mankind just yet..." "I hate you, Dragon-boy." Shad's grin widened. *** The doors to the throne room were open, and judging by what they could see from the hallway, the fight had been fought, and judging by the ones standing, the good guys had won. Probably. Several Rangers were standing over numerous guards, unconscious, dead and everything in between, Kat and Nexx were standing together over a body that had apparently exploded from inside out, and Kat was mumbling something about chains over and over again. *Guess we missed all the fun...* As they were taking in the scene someone piped up, "Can we go home now?" It sounded like the best idea today. End seg 6.