The wake of the nearby boat washed over Ingrid's Burning Leaf fighter jet, causing it to jostle on the surface of the water briefly. Sixteen thousand pounds of metal and kerosene would not float for long.

Light flashed behind her head. A brilliant, blinding wall of light, peppered with echoes of deflected bullets. Ingrid spun around to look. A soldier with a rifle had emerged from a hatch at the top of the ship's tower, and he was busy taking free shots at Titania's shield.

"Do something idiot!" Ashe insisted.

"Well, punching out now is out of the option," Ingrid replied. It would not take long before the soldier went to fetch a rocket launcher or some other weapon Titania could not block. She did not want to be floating on a parachute when that happened.

The nose began to sink. Water began to leak into the cabin, pooling at Ingrid's feet. "Wind! Create a barrier of air against the water. Press all the water out of the airplane!"

That will take many Elementals, a breathy voice replied.

"Summon enough of them to get it done! Water! Help move the water so it can be pressed out!" A small blob of water appeared just in front of Ingrid, then sent tendrils down to the pools on the floor of the cabin. Those pools began to shrink as the Elemental pumped the water back up through the leaks. More shots struck Titania's shield.

The others say that the openings to the engine are too large, the engine cannot be cleared of water.

"That's fine, don't worry about the engine. Just focus on the leaks you can prevent. High Daughter of Stone! Summon small Elementals, arrange them inside the open spaces to provide weight!"

"What are you planning?" Ashe asked. "More weight will make us sink!"

"It's better than being shot at!" Water enveloped the canopy, and the gleaming surface began to recede. The air inside the fighter jet did not stream out, and no water leaked in. Ingrid sank in silence. "I have bonds with eleven high daughters, certainly one of you can figure out how to spin the turbine underwater?"

There is a way, a voice like static replied. It will require help from two Lightning Elementals and one Metal Elemental. We must create a magnetic field around the central shaft, then run a strong current through the shaft itself.

"I have no idea what any of that means, but make it happen. When I move the throttle forward, I want it to spin faster. Is that alright?"

As you wish.

"Lighting, Metal, I summon you! Do as the High Daughter of Lightning asks. Make the turbine spin!"

It did not take long. A whirring sound began from the left engine first, and then the right engine. The fighter began to slowly move forward, as evidenced by the bubbles all around rushing past. The nose began to rise, toward the light of the surface. Ingrid pressed down on the stick, and the nose went down, away from the light.

"Stone, I dismiss you! Titania! Can you create a cone of light in front of us, in the direction of my eyesight?"

It shall be so.

It wasn't exactly like flying, but it was close enough. The airplane mostly just wanted to go straight underwater, and the control surfaces were slow to move and twitch around in non-linear ways. The cyan Colored Orb had only been trained to create aerodynamic stability in air, not in water. The Elemental was struggling. Learning to fly through the water was something Ingrid would need to manage on her own. The brilliant cone of light ahead revealed more dark shapes ascending toward the surface.

Ingrid aimed straight at one of them, then used the rudder to shift to one side. She "flew" through the water alongside it, dropping power and waiting just a few feet away from the solid black wall of metal. "Titania? Can you claim any contracts within?"

There are no Fire Elementals nearby.

"High Daughter of Metal! Can I summon a Metal Elemental inside the enemy ship?"

You are close enough, it can be done, replied a humming drone-like voice.

"Do it! Split the hull apart!"

A massive deafening crack instantly blasted Ingrid's ears, just as a wave of air rushed out, batting the fighter jet aside underwater. Her ears rang, and she heard nothing, not even her own voice. She blinked, and looked around. The enemy ship had been split apart along one side, and it was gushing air and sinking rapidly. Ashe was screaming something, but Ingrid heard nothing.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Life!" she cried, even though she could not hear what she was saying. She was hoping the High Daughter would understand her intent. "Heal my ears! Give me back my hearing!"

Slowly the sounds inside the cabin began to return. Ingrid reached into her pack and fished out her pair of ear plugs and thick earmuffs. She had not taken them out of her pack since her trip into the Plane of Wind.

Sound carries much better down here, a watery voice said. It is unwise to be so close to the sound.

"Yeah, I get it," Ingrid said as she stuffed the ear plugs in her ears. One of the magenta Colored Orbs was blinking rapidly. She activated it. "What is it?"

"She's alive!" came the muffled response. "Lady Ghost?! Where are you? We saw you go down in the water, but then we lost contact."

"Yeah, I'm busy. I can fly underwater now, and I am breaking the hulls on the ships down here. Don't worry about me, focus on staying alive." She cut the communicator, then put the earmuffs over her ears.

Punching the throttle forward, Ingrid pointed the nose toward another nearby ship. It was deeper underwater, longer, and dotted with fighter jets tied down to the upper deck. She flew through the water to the very back of the ship, near the spinning propellers, and used the air brakes to stop.

"Titania?"

There are Fire Elementals nearby, I have claimed them.

"Command them to explode after a minute."

It is done.

Ingrid punched the throttle again and ran away. "Wind, summon more Air Elementals to fortify the barrier against sound!"

This is too slow, an older woman said in her mind. The High Daughter of the Queen of Heaven typically had an older voice, but calm and smooth. The guardian is nearby, and I can direct her. As long as you can see the target, she will be able to deliver the vengeance of the Queen of Heaven against these interlopers.

"Yes! Ask the guardian to come down and help!"

The refracted light all around gave a dark turquoise cast to the water just outside the canopy. Glittering, pale light created long shafts that vanished into the dark depths below. The dim oval shapes of enemy ships gathered just under the surface just ahead and on either side. The massive ship behind exploded with a dull thud, creating massive bubbles filled with fire and smoke. The explosion caused Ingrid's fighter jet to shutter and list to one side in the water.

Ingrid kept her eyes fixed on the dark shapes ahead, up until the moment a brilliant, pale indigo light gathered over the surface of the water. A spearhead, several hundred feet wide, made of indigo stars connected by glowing lines, broke the water and slammed down through one of the ships, slicing it clean in half with a pop. At unimaginable speed, the spearhead ripped upward, only to stab down again an instant later, slicing a second ship in half. On and on the slaughter continued, sending shockwaves through the water and knocking Ingrid's fighter away.

"To slaughter so many people," Ashe said. "Ingrid, you are such an evil tyrant! I'm so proud!"

"Those enemies would not hesitate to fire their missiles at my brothers and sisters in the airships above," Ingrid said. "It cannot be helped." Even as she said it, she knew she was lying to herself. Those people would die horrible deaths being crushed deep underwater as their ships sank.

"How pragmatic."

The stabbing stopped. The enemy fleet was sinking, hemorrhaging massive bubbles of air. Ingrid spun her fighter around in a circle but saw no other shapes appear in her cone of light. "Daughter of Heaven, can the guardian lift me out of the water?"

She can.

"Please command her to do so, but make sure she lifts very, very slowly so that I don't get knocked out."

Five massive constellation-fingers broke the surface just ahead, forming into a hand that sank below Ingrid's fighter and began to slowly lift upward. The fighter jolted when the hand truck the bottom. The hand seemed to lift a huge bubble of water up out of the ocean, which transitioned from dark turquoise to transparent and then finally broke away in sheets to reveal the open sky. Through the gaps between the stars, Ingrid could see the ocean slowly dropping away.

"Water and Wind! Expunge all the water out of the fighter jet."

Thousands, and then tens of thousands of feet of air separated Ingrid from the ocean. The fleet of airships shrank, becoming small toys when juxtaposed against the three mile-tall guardian. Explosions flashed in the sky below, as friendly fighters shot down the last of the enemies. An airship was busy dropping a payload of bombs on top of one of the surviving enemy ships.

"High Daughter of Fire! Summon two fresh Fire Elementals into the Engines! Heaven! Command the guardian to drop us!"

The hand dropped away as the engines began to spool. Ingrid rapidly flipped the switches to enable the kerosene bleed system. Because water would sink in kerosene, if any leaked inside the tanks it would end up at the bottom of the sump tank. A quick release of the kerosene sump tank dump valve would rid the tank of any water that had leaked in, ejecting it out of the airplane as it fell. After a few moments she released the main sump tank valve and punched the kerosene throttle forward. The airplane rocketed forward, and she pointed the nose at the ocean. Airspeed rapidly increased.

Ingrid felt tired. After almost nodding off to sleep, she snapped her eyes open and activated a magenta Colored Orb. "Blade Tower, this is Ghost, requesting an emergency landing."

"Ghost cleared to land, Blade Tower."

The Blade of Empire was just ahead and below. Ingrid cut the throttle and deployed the air brakes, flaps, and finally the landing gear. Her vision began to darken as she lined up for a landing. Gently, gently, and patiently, she held the nose along the line, forcing her eyes to stay open with effort.

The back wheels skid on the ground, and she kept flying until the nose dropped. A quick kick to the brakes brought her into the red lines between the taxiway and the runway. She stopped, and activated the orb one more time.

"Send... nurses. I need to sleep. I do not know... how long I will be gone."

As darkness consumed her vision, the last thing Ingrid saw was the sharp fangs in Ashe's mouth. She was smiling.