Chrome and Orian were flying through the air above the city looking for any Order aircraft to take down or civilians to rescue.
Most of the townspeople had been safely evacuated into the mountain portion of the city and the gates separating the 2 sections had been fortified.
But since squads of Order knights still roamed the city, a few citizens had been cut off and cornered.
Currently the Rakasha and Dwarves were leading several squads through the city to exterminate any Order soldiers still found.
But as they might not be able to reach the trapped citizens in time, Orian and Chrome flew ahead and secured them before calling in Griffins to evacuate them.
Chrome saw movement out of the corner of his eye and quickly fired a sharpened scale at an Order aircraft.
It struck the machine just below it's spinning blades and quickly caught fire and fell to the ground.
"That's 7 now, little brother!!" Exclaimed Chrome.
"Would you stop calling me that!! We're the same age!" Exclaimed Orian.
"No, we're not!! I lived for 10 years while you haven't even seen your first hatching day!!"
"In body we're the same! I choose to go off that!!" Retorted Orian.
"We're not the same age!" Exclaimed Chrome.
"Yes we are!!" Responded Orian.
"No We're not!!" Exclaimed Chrome.
An angry catlike yowl interrupted the brother's argument.
Chrome looked down and saw several Order knights had cornered Xenia. Quill was hiding by her back legs.
Several archers had taken high ground on the rooftops of buildings and were currently hiding behind cover.
The height, combined with the cover, made it next to impossible for Xenia to shoot the archers down.
And neither Manticore could risk taking to the air for fear of being shot down a moment later.
Several bolts had already pierced Xenia's hide and even though the standoff was currently evenly matched, Chrome knew it was only a matter of time before a lucky shot killed one of the Manticores.
"She needs help!!" Stated Chrome.
He shifted into his humanoid dragon form and dove down before his brother could stop him.
Tucking in his limbs, tail and wings, he started spinning while aiming at a knight that he assumed was the leader of the group.
He landed in the middle of the formation and shredded the man before he even had a chance to cry out.
Chrome uncurled and swung out his tail, severing the legs of another man. The men cried out and spread out to try and avoid his strikes, but Chrome gave them no chance to do so.
Chrome found that because his scales were so sharp, pretty much every part of his body could be a potential weapon.
So he adapted a martial arts style that utilized practically every inch of his body with plenty of tail sweeps, leg sweeps or even elbow strikes.
Using his fast reflexes, he sharpened each section of his scales as needed as he slowly cut through each knight that stood in his way, not even bothering to use his weapon.
Above him, Orian cleared out the archers with a single sweep of his breath weapon.
Chrome and Orian had practiced together after their transformation, Orian could release a beam from his mouth that could cut through practically any material like a hot knife through butter.
Chrome was a different matter entirely. When he tested out his breath weapon on a target dummy, all he managed to do was release a cloud of golden dust.
After the cloud dissipated however, both dragons were shocked to discover that the dummy had turned into a statue of solid gold.
Although the breath weapon had a short range, it was exceptionally dangerous. This combined with his sharpened scale projectiles made Chrome a highly dangerous combatant.
As he cut the throat of the man in front of him, another charged him from behind with his sword raised.
Chrome didn't have enough time to dodge or deflect and was bracing his body to take a hit, when a barbed spine flew past his shoulder and struck the man through an eye visor.
He looked up and saw Xenia with her tail raised and barbs ready to fire.
Another squad of knights quickly rushed down the alley but she sniped each one with a barb through the eye or head one by one.
The last man released a fierce battle cry and ran as fast as he could but he only managed to take two steps before a barb flew through his open mouth, turning his battle cry into a choked gurgle.
Once he was certain everyone was dead, he approached the two manticores.
Chrome and Xenia stared at each other intently. Chrome wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline of fighting together or something else, but he'd never felt this close to her before.
A strange feeling of warmth filled his chest and the red of her fur seemed to brighten as she blushed and averted her eyes.
"Uh... A-Are either of you h-hurt?" Stammered Chrome
Quill shook her head.
"A few hits, but nothing serious!" Stated Xenia.
Chrome inspected her wounds.
"Take your daughter to the mountain quarter and seek healing for your wounds." Ordered Chrome.
"Don't coddle me, dragon! I'll take my daughter to safety like you suggested, but afterwards I'm rejoining the battle!!" Stated Xenia flatly.
Chrome really didn't have time to argue with the notoriously hard headed manticore, so he just nodded and accepted her compromise.
They all took to the air and the dragon brothers split off from the Manticores.
"You know she's going to pursue you even more fiercely now that you saved both herself and her daughter, right?" Stated Orian.
"Maybe I'm ok with that. " stated Chrome.
It looked like Orian was going to speak more on the topic, but he stopped when a saw a tight pack of aircraft leaving the city and flying behind the mountain.
After Orian pointed them out to Chrome, he grinned in response.
"Cool!! More targets!!" Exclaimed Chrome.
"Not so fast, brother... let's follow them instead! These things had to have come from somewhere. We can find out from where if we do.so!" Suggested Orian.
"Fair enough! As long as we can destroy them later I don't mind!!" Stated Chrome.
They followed them around the mountain from a discreet distance until they saw the aircraft's final destination.
They gasped when they did.
A massive black ship was hovering in the air behind the mountain that was almost as big as a castle.
Two large sacks were tied to the top of the ship and seemed to be helping to keep the massive structure in the air.
The smaller craft were docking and releasing from it at regular intervals and the entire ship was bursting with anti dragon harpoon launchers.
Men were running across it's surface like agitated ants.
"What by the ancient ones is that supposed to be!!?" Exclaimed Chrome.
"Probably the Order's main outpost! No wonder we can't find their location!! It moves around!!" Stated Orian.
"Can we even take that thing down?!" Asked Chrome.
"Not alone! We should retreat for now, let's tell father what we found!!" Stated Orian.
They turned back to the city and scanned the air for their father.
No one had seem him since the beginning of the battle and the two dragons were starting to get concerned.
It wasn't like their father to dissappear for an entire battle.
A knight was suddenly launched at high speed through several houses.
They saw their father follow him a short moment later in his humanoid dragon form.
"There you are!!" Thought Chrome.