30 minutes earlier…
To any dragon who may have had the heart stopping misfortune of entering Crown Princess Charlie DelRose’s guest room, it would have been quiet. The place looked as though a maelstrom had torn through it and utterly destroyed the restrained beauty of the room; and it would take weeks of diligent work for everything to be repaired back to usable shape. But, it was quiet. To the outside observer, it would appear as if whatever ghastly event had rendered the room so disastrously wrecked was far past. At least, they would make this deduction if they merely peeked inside and immediately left. “AXIS MORTIMER YOU TRAITOR! YOU PSYCHOTIC IDIOT!” Katya’s voice penetrated through the far wall, past the glass of the former upper floor, and shrieked into the room’s open space. Trapped inside the washroom, she had given up trying to force the door open. Whatever that fool had done had somehow interfered with the latching mechanism and slide rails. Her anger, her fury, while not diminished was beginning to focus from a raging, panicked inferno to a white hot, singular flame. She whirled to take stock of the washroom and cursed the Palace’s use of slaves and servants to keep everything clean. She slammed an unsheathed talon into the floor and cracked one of the floor for good measure. Unlike a normal dragon home, she would find no chemicals here suitable for a mix their labels would specifically warn against. Her eyes lingered on the grit blaster nozzles and sonic emitters, brain working furiously for a solution they could be part of, but nothing came. The nozzles would be too low pressure and the sonic emitters would have failsafes to keep them from discharging a frequency high enough to be destructive. And neither did she have anything strong enough to crack open the tiled walls to reach their power supplies, not that said power supplies would have enough strength to melt anything in a timely fashion.
Katya winced and ground her teeth. There was only one real solution. It was going to hurt like hell, but if she didn’t act, she would hold as much responsibility for the death of a Matriarch as if she’d done the deed herself. Now of all times was not one to balk at pain. With a grunt of exertion, she heaved the solid wood vanity bench onto its side and cracked it back to the ground now on the opposite end of the washroom. Granted the necessary space, she faced the wall directly to the left of the door and reeled back her neck. Her wings half expanded involuntarily and the dust of a long unused strength was whisked away on the winds of the wellspring of her latent powers. She stamped down on the instinct to suppress the graduating, searing pain building in her through her body, lancing out like electric spasms beneath her scales. She did everything she could to keep her focus, to not scream, to not give in. Heat was radiating off of her now, distorting her vision and beginning to melt the lacquer of the tile immediately beneath her feet. A thin tongue of flame escaped some part of her body, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared with a sound of a celebratory bottle rocket. “NO!” she couldn’t help herself shriek out, as more of the dancing fire shot from her. Katya tried, tried desperately to regain control, but it was a battle already lost. Her muscles clenched, and her world became white. She became engulfed in a violent column of fire building to a fever pitch of barely controlled power that then released. The very tile beneath her exploded into powder against the heat of her flames and the wood of the wall splintered apart into fragments and sawdust while the insulation behind it vaporized to ash. The subsequent wall into the room proper met a similar fate against the supernatural fire bellowing out in an expanding sphere from Katya’s form, sending charred chips of wood and hanging embers scattering into Pi’s room. With a heaving effort, she cut herself off from the living Second State in her soul, and the flames which would have carried on uncontested otherwise, mercifully extinguished. She allowed herself a few seconds to recover with sharp breaths that stung her throat, but pushed on, gingerly crawling through the still crackling hole where the washroom wall had once been and taking in the absolute state of damage Axis had left behind and she had only added to. “That complete maniac…” she croaked out, and stumbled when she tried to take steps any more quickly than a slow walk. “Damn it,” she hissed, unable to ignore the simple fact that she was in no shape to go after Axis.
But he had to be stopped, and if not her, she was standing in a Palace rife with dragons who could. Katya lurched forward to the room’s exit, each step returning her strength but still not quickly enough. Her talon fumbled with the door latch but when she had it, she threw it open with reckless disregard for manners. She practically fell out into the hall, and was immediately set upon by the few servants wandering through. “Ma’am, are you hurt?” one drake asked her, quite concerned.
“Get. Me. The. Crown. Princess,” Katya snarled. “Now!” she roared when the servants faltered in confusion. The drake waved hurriedly to one of his compatriots whose lenses went bright with compliance to Katya’s demand.
“What happened? What’s the matter?” the drake asked her.
“Holy Progeny…” another said behind her, having poked his head into the devastated room.
“I have Tiana DelRose here,” the drake with active lens said.
“NO!” Katya bellowed with no patience. “A Matriarch’s life is at stake!”
“Who!?” all three servants asked in overlapping alarm.
“Matriarch… Loftus,” Katya struggled to say, coughing fits twisting her throat in protest. “Get someone to her! Now! A Duke!”
“Done!” the servant said shakily. “We should get you to a nurse.”
“I’ll… I’ll be… I’ll be fine. Fine. I’ll be fine,” Katya hacked out, collapsing onto the floor in a heap. “Seriously… I will be.” She succumbed to the deep, heaving breaths her body demanded and made no more effort to speak, hoping and praying that whoever was sent out would be able to find and stop Axis in time. And preferably keep him alive so she could rip his head off herself.
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Sam Rothbard was enjoying a relaxing, solitary lunch in his stateroom, viewjector murmuring lines to some aimless news report he was only half paying attention to when his HUD booted from sleep of its own accord. He paused mid chew, watching suspiciously as the boot sequence completed and the pre-flight checklist for a Mongoose fighter in his cruiser’s hangar populated, shortly followed by the ship’s instrument data. Someone on the bridge had remotely sent this to his lenses and was spinning up a fighter without his authorization. Very calmly, he finished the morsel in his mouth and removed the meal caps from his extended talons, taking a deep, extensive breath in. Someone on his crew was about to spend the next week in the brig on limited rations, and he would make sure they were demoted and sent off to some Progeny forsaken command on the border.
Rothbard stood from his meal bench and was about to exit to the bridge, furious orders licking at his lips, when Grand Knight Cathis burst into his stateroom with reckless abandon. “M’lord!” he said with lightning nerves, “A Duchery Code 2 was just ordered to you and the Ward! It’s Matriarch Loftus! Grand Knight Yoroff ordered a Mongoose ready for you in Hangar 1!”
Rothbard’s previous incensed mood vanished in an instant, replaced with cool, collected training and experience. “I’m aware,” he said, already brushing past Cathis onto the bridge. “Yoroff!” he shouted, not ceasing in his path to the elevators to take him down the cruiser’s neck to the hangar. “Move the Ward into close orbit over the Palace, Duchery Authorization EI-211! And make sure they have a harness for me by the time I reach that Mongoose! Battle stations! Now!”
“Aye, my Lord!” Yoroff boomed back, his voice blaring over the intercom only a second later, “All crew, battle stations! This is not a drill! Repeat! All crew, battle stations! This is not a drill!” Rothbard was already in the elevator, surging down to the cruiser’s main deck, when his ship transformed. The lights switched over to a glowing red, the battle stations alarm sang its screeching tone before going silent, and the whole of the vessel shuddered and banged as her drives were fired to combat speed and her many weapons unlocked and loaded. Through it all, Rothbard’s face was firmly set in an emotionless scowl. No stray thoughts ripped across his brain, no muscle flexed or tensed, and not an ounce of feeling radiated from him. It didn’t take an Aiza analyst to determine the source of the threat on Matriarch Loftus. Sam had weighed that risk. But his path and duty was clear and regret was not a part of that calculation.
The elevator opened on a ship in a flurry of motion, crew drakes dashing to and fro, making ready the Ward for combat per their training. Equally, a quick glance toward Rothbard and they made way for his brisk, purpose filled steps down the ship’s corridors. They asked no questions nor stared dumbly and immediately resumed their tasks once he had passed. Hangar 1 was just as, if not more, a beehive of activity. Helephant crews scurried around their ships, closing up access ports and verifying ammunition loads while Mongoose pilots did pre-flight drive tests and shouted orders for the ground crews to clear away the step ladders and pull the charge cords. Dragons ran about, some pulling carts away from launch areas, others locking down supply crates and equipment, and still others bounding to their stations in the middle of throwing on their uniforms. The din was chaotic and Rothbard paid it no mind. Two dragons were waiting for him at the hangar entrance and joined him in lockstep on the way to the prepped Mongoose. On arrival, the starfighter’s ground crew began finishing their checks while Sam’s two escorts popped open a nearby weapon crate and with practiced fluidity, mounted and secured to him a light duty weapon harness.
“Go for sync check, m’lord,” the senior of them said once the spinal needles fastened themselves in Sam’s back. Rothbard could feel the weapon arms like a familiar extra set of limbs sitting above and just before his haunches. His dexterity with them was not rusty as he adjusted them in a wide array of positions and angles in rapid succession.
“Check sat. And HUDlens targeting check,” the drake continued. Rothbard’s eyes shifted up, down, and side to side and the harness’s twin bolt cannons responded in kind with exacting precision. “Check sat. Cleared for insertion m’lord.”
Rothbard nodded a swift and silent acknowledgement before climbing up the boarding ladder into the Mongoose and mounting the pilot’s saddle. His lens confirmed the fighter’s recognition of his entrance and offered flight controls accordingly. The canopy clamshelled shut and Rothbard connected communications to the Ward’s bridge. “Where’s my launch clearance, Yoroff?” Sam asked.
“Done, you have it,” his officer answered over distorted speakers. And true to his word, Sam’s lenes overlaid with his Mongoose’s launch path out of the hangar. He waited no longer and without regard for any unfortunate crewdrake not intelligent enough to have cleared the fighter’s drive cone, he twisted all four of his throttle bars to maximum, tensing as the electric scream of the drives rocketed the starfighter from the magnetic seal of the ship’s hangar into the vacuum of space and his body was assaulted by the force of the launch. Sam did not relent, pushing the ship to the limits of its acceleration as he angled her toward the Loft.
“My lord, I’m linking you to Duchery command on the surface,” Yoroff said in Rothbard’s ear.
“Go for Duchery asset,” Sam answered, simultaneously charging the Mongoose’s thermal shield for atmospheric entry.
“Duke Rothbard,” a drake’s voice as serene as Sam’s own mind replaced Yoroff’s. “Duchery command was alerted to a Code 2 on Matriarch Loftus by Matriarch DelRose. She ordered your deployment to counter the threat. You have landing clearance on Matriarch Loftus’s personal platform on the south side of Loftus Tower. Navigation en route now.”
“I see it,” Sam replied, adjusting the Mongoose slightly to match the flight plan. “Dustin,” he added in a more frank tone, “she didn’t know the nature of the threat, did she?”
“Oh she did,” the comm said. “Save it for ident confirmation, Sam.”
“Copy,” he acknowledged. “Yoroff, deploy three Helephants with our spec op teams behind me. Secure Loftus Tower. No one enters or leaves that site until I give the all clear.”
“Aye, m’lord,” Yoroff confirmed the order.
“Duchery command has already grounded trams and transports in and out of the tower,” Dustin added. “Your teams have full permission to sweep and secure the area.”
“Copy,” Sam said again. “I’m in the atmosphere. Palace straight ahead. Going dark.” As Sam’s Mongoose surged toward the Palace of the Loft, two additional Mongooses from the fortress itself met him and banked to escort him in. The Ridley-class cruisers typically hovering in place over the outer edges of the City of the Loft had retreated back, forming a tight, gun bristling ring around the Imperial seat of power. Their Helephants and Mongooses darted between the the cruisers and the Palace, warding away any incoming transports and escorting any caught by the lockdown mid-flight. Rothbard paid them all no mind, shooting through a gap in the Ridleys and right into the heart of the Palace towers. He ducked and weaved the fighter around the tangle of tram cables, not letting off the throttle until he reared up her nose to bring her down at the uppermost landing pad of Loftus Tower. His two escorts roared past him, banking away again and assuming a patrol pattern around the tower with several Helephants.
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Rothbard practically slammed the Mongoose’s landing struts onto the platform, his adrenaline spiking in preparation for what was to come and he didn’t bother to fully power off the ship before springing open the canopy and leaping out and into a full, bolting run. The security drakes would secure his ship. “MOVE! OUT OF THE WAY!” Rothbard roared to those standing between him and the entrance to the tower, careening past the gathered dragons and not concerning himself with whether his bolt cannons clipped anyone with a hearty bruise. Every muscle in his body was alive with energy, burning from the recklessness of his charging gallop and he was grateful that a dragoness near the door to the tower was present of mind enough to slide it open for him. He could not stop. He would have blasted it open otherwise.
Inside Loftus Tower, servants and royals alike cowered against the walls, surrounded by Naval marine drakes. Rothbard kept his blistering pace, head darting side to side, searching for his target as he bounded round the balcony-like floor. And as he turned in to run the length of it faster, his vision tightened into a narrow focus. There, just emerging from an elevator, was his target accompanied by one of the Matriarch’s ladies-in-waiting. Axis Mortimer’s head swiveled around abruptly, perplexed by the marines occupying the tower en masse.
And it took Axis only a fraction of a second to sight Rothbard barreling down on him, harness extending to combat position. The younger dragon reactively dropped into a wider stance, all four talon’s metal plated claws flicking out, wings half splaying wide, and tail whipping back and forth in anticipation. Samuel was on top of him before he could even fire his weapons and his haunches switched effortlessly from running to propelling him into a lethal lunge, talons extended. Axis roared with an aggressive eagerness, gripping the balcony rail and yanking himself over its edge and back to ground again as Rothbard sailed into where he had just stood. And he gave Sam little time to whip himself back around, crossing the distance between them at speed and burying his front claws in the floor as Rothard barely rolled away.
He was no greenhorn to fighting other dragons, that much was already very apparent, and Rothbard responded as such. He remotely disconnected his harness and shrugged the weight from his back while simultaneously extending out his neck, checking a vicious talon swipe from Axis with his horns. A resonating crack echoed in the deathly silent tower as metal and bone connected and Rothbard’s vertebrae strained from the power of Axis’s blow. But he was a Duke who had faced down far stronger, immortal opponents. Axis still had physical limitations and Rothbard was going to find and exceed them. He reared his head up with lightning speed, forcing Axis to backpedal lest he be punctured by Sam’s horns, and Sam advanced on the opening. His wings hooked out with precision and control, each swing carrying enough force to reduce dragon scales to cracking fragments. Axis responded in kind, using his own wings to parry away Rothbard’s assault and snapping his head forward like a viper, hoping to catch one in his fangs and give him an offensive shift. Dull thuds accompanied each contact between the two dragons, accentuated by Axis’s occasional hissing of frustration.
Sam restrained a confident grin. He was wearing down the younger dragon’s patience and it wouldn’t be long before it made Axis sloppy in desperation. Or so he assumed before Axis, instead of blocking one of Rothbard’s strikes, dropped low to dodge it entirely and threw off the rhythm the fight had begun to develop. His falter was less than a second of hesitation but it was all Axis needed to dance under Sam’s left wing and jam a talon into his side. The blow was swift and imprecise, Axis’s talons glancing on Rothbard’s scales and slicing his clothes rather than puncturing them, but the impact still sent him staggering away. The black and green feathered selectee offered no reprieve, lunging forward, this time slipping to Sam’s right and aiming to drag a front talon down his entire side. Axis’s maneuvers were growing more unorthodox, but Sam adapted, snapping his tail like a whip in defense. Axis pivoted on his hind legs to avoid it, and did save for a grazing bruising to his front shoulder. Rothbard made to rotate and swipe at Axis with an outstretched talon, but his opponent reared back on his hind legs and Rothbard sliced through empty air.
Axis came back to all fours, wings jabbing out toward Sam’s face, but Rothbard feinted forward, snapping his neck out and cleanly sinking his fangs into a defensive swiping arm from Axis. The black dragon hissed viscously, landing a deep swipe of his other claw across Rothbard’s snout, the serrated metal claws gouging off the softer scales with ease. Sam roared out, releasing Axis and hopping back, tasting his own blood dripping down onto his lips. For his part, Axis tentatively flexed the talon of his jaggedly torn front leg, and confirming everything was still working, ripped off the shredded sleeve of his fatigues and leapt back into the fight. He leaned forward only to twist around, the rotation of his entire body slinging his tail out with far more force than it would have on it’s own. Rothbard sidestepped, Axis’s tail slamming down where he had been with enough power to send vibrations through the floor. And he continued to rotate, making another spin, this time whirling his tail horizontal. This Rothbard checked with a fanned wing, shoved it away, and deflected Axis’s follow on talon to his throat with his own. They came to rapid, stinging blows yet again, exchanging blocked and parried swings at each other with both wing, talon, and fang. The fight Rothbard had just moments ago assumed would be over swiftly began to drag, and he winced as a parry sent roiling pain through his bones from excessive bruising. His only consolation was that his opponent had to be in the same position, just as badly beaten. He needed an advantage that Axis’s Watcher training was not going to afford him.
Rothbard shifted tack. If Axis was intent on fighting him as though he were a Tocri’ah demon, he would respond in kind. His wings fanned to their full span and with two strong beats and a push of his hind legs, Rothbard disengaged from Axis. His target was trained to close distance if he had no weapons, and that made distance his ally. Axis predictably shot forward to close the gap between them, and Rothbard with low jab of his wing, connected to the side of Axis’s skull with an audible, grisly crack. Momentum sent the black dragon careening in dazed rolls across the floor, and rather than try to take the chance to finish the fight, Rothbard merely shifted his position, maintaining his previous distance from Axis. The selectee shook his head, trying to clear his vision and stood only to charge in a sprint again. Rothbard mercilessly clocked him again with same blow, only from the other side this time. And once again, Axis was sent in a hapless tumble across the floor. He returned to his feet more slowly this time, a low snarl rumbling in his throat and his eyes blinking rapidly, trying to focus. A deep, apologetic sigh escaped Rothbard when Axis repeated his doomed closing run, but Sam’s pupils shrunk when his wing cut through only empty air. Axis had stopped himself just short of Rothbard this time, and he was unable to evade when Axis reared back, grabbed Sam’s horns in his front talons, and slammed his head into the ground.
Whatever damage Rothbard had done to Axis was dealt right back to him, body struggling to not go limp and his vision blurring. But adrenaline and instinct on the brink of defeat were potent sensations, and he responded by brutally slamming the elbow of his wing into Axis’s neck. A satisfying crunch of scales crushing in on themselves filled the air as Axis reeled, unable to keep his balance and falling to his side. Sam righted himself with more effort than he thought he should have had to exert but was rewarded with the sight of Axis doing the same, rubbing his neck and inspecting the flaking bits of scale that crumbled off in his talon. When he returned his eyes to Rothbard, there was a fire in his eyes that had been absent before. An enraged, blinding fury at having been dealt such a tangible wound by a mere mortal.
That fire converted to a seemingly unlocked reserve of strength as he rushed Sam again, feinting to one side then another and roaring with unmistakable wrath. Rothbard backpedaled, trying to ignore the random scales chipping from his legs and chest and trickling blood down his torn clothes as Axis’s barrage of talons slipped by fractions of a second through his counters. Axis was not looking to simply best Sam now. This form was to flay him to within an inch of his life, maybe even to take it. He did not want to, but answered in kind, shifting from simply trying to bludgeon and maim Axis into submission into strikes that would potentially kill him.
The next clawing slice Axis made at Rothbard he only half deflected with his own front leg, allowing Axis’s talons to skate along his scales and twisting his palm around to dig his claws into Axis’s leg. With that singular move, he sheared off nearly all of the scales on Axis’s leg and dug deep enough into the underscale to spray blood onto them both. Axis shrieked in pain, flicking his leg away from Rothbard’s grip and jumping back to dodge Sam’s other talon aimed at his neck.
But so damaged was Axis’s leg that he couldn’t place any weight on it, prompting Rothbard to viciously take the opening. His tail lashed out, cleanly impacting the fresh lesion. Axis screamed again, unable to hold his balance and collapsing on his side. Rothbard was there instantly, leaping up and puncturing Axis’s softer underbelly with his rear talons and buffeting his sides with scale fracturing wing blows. His opponent flailed, trying to deflect the assault even as his movements deepend the wounds in his stomach. Rothbard squeezed his rear talons, wanting to end this fight quickly, but Axis still resisted, catching one of Sam’s wings in his fangs and ripping out a bloody mass of feathers and wing webbing.
Now it was Sam who faltered, snarling as blood flowed freely from the gash. Axis took his opportunity, twisting his body around and ensnaring Rothbard’s neck with his tail. He followed with a slicing kick at Sam’s front legs, dislodging the talons from his stomach before releasing a vengeful roar and bashing Rothbard’s head to the ground a second time. Axis staggered to his feet adrenaline numbing whatever reactionary pain his shredded legs wanted to give and his military uniform tattered with blood soaking both the underside and leaking down where his damaged scales had pierced the underscale beneath. Rothbard shook off the dazing blow to his head, and winced when the pressure on his front legs yielded blood and grotesquely snapping scales.
Still, Axis was not finished, making to leap at Sam but whipping his body around and instead striking at Rothbard’s face with his tail. In smooth continuation of the motion he completed the rotation, now in perfect range to drive in his talons. But he didn’t, favoring to drive his horns into Sam’s chest. The pain and damage was excruciating, the length of Axis’s horns surely meaning he scraped Rothbard’s bones. But the younger dragon kept his motion, pulling away and rearing back on his hind legs and letting his front talons try to sever Rothbard’s wing arms completely.
And he would have succeeded save that Sam took full advantage of Axis’s foolish exposure of his neck. With his remaining good wing, Sam cowled Axis’s head, forcing it down and issuing an opposite direction clawed rip to his foe’s throat. Axis’s wings battered Rothbard’s head in protest, escaping the worst of the blow, and throwing his full weight into Sam. He drove the two of them back until Rothbard found firm footing and braced against the shove, bending low and twisting Axis off him in a tumble. As he collapsed away from Sam, Axis managed a deep graze to the former’s shoulder with a hind talon. Both dragons righted themselves again, Axis draining blood where he stood and Rothbard spitting it from his mouth where it had oozed from the scrapes in his snout. Both of them were now badly injured and would likely fall from blood loss sooner than losing their battle outright, but Axis had Samuel’s Duke mindsight: victory or death. He and Rothbard began to circle each other, recognizing that the first to land the next blow would have to land the last.
“STOP!” The thundering roar which broke the silence of the fight echoed and reverberated off the walls of Loftus Tower was as if it had come from the First Matriarch of draconic legend speaking Drael into existence. It rang with singular authority and purpose that was not to be denied, ensuring every dragon’s head whirled to see the source. Matriarch Loftus strode from the elevator to her chambers, past the terrified and whimpering ladies-in-waiting clustered around Leah, to stand directly between the two bruised and bloody drakes. The royal adornments she wore and her imposing, regal stance contrasted so sharply against their savage appearances it was as though she cast them both into indignant shadow. Her eyes were narrow and her lips thin as she looked first to Axis, still crouched low and heaving breath, then to Samuel, wings struggling to not hang limply at his sides. “Duke!” she addressed Rothbard, her very tone a stern reprimand. “Stand down. This dragon has not nor did he seek to do me harm. Your information is incomplete.” Marley Loftus turned away from him to steadily scan the room, lingering on each marine drake just long enough to ensure they acknowledged her gaze. “The threat on my life never was!” she proclaimed. “By my authority as Matriarch, this operation is secured!” Murmurs of confusion rippled through the tower, uncertainty palpable in the air.
“Obey the command of a Matriarch damn it! Secure yourselves!” Rothbard barked, regretting it immediately as shooting pains exploded through his chest and blood welled in his mouth.
“And see to these two fools!” Marley added, wings gesturing to both Rothbard and Axis before snapping about in evident, mounting frustration and giving softer commands to her sister. For a moment, Axis remained hunched in ready anticipation, head tracking Marley’s return to the elevator. But no sooner had its doors sealed shut did the vibrance of battle drain from his form, replaced by the unsteady shaking of a severely wounded drake. Axis collapsed on his side, wincing and groaning audibly, his scale stripped front leg held gingerly aloft as it spasmed uncontrollably, showering him in droplets of his own blood. Rothbard too could not hold himself standing. He dropped to the ground, a doing what he could with a talon to stem the flow of blood from the punctures in his chest. His breathing was short and labored from whatever internal damage his body had sustained, and he was forced to keep the wing Axis had torn a chunk from extended for fear of collapsing it and only furthering the tear.
Even bringing back his lenses took effort. “Yoroff…” he coughed out, straining against the pain of speaking.
“We received the secure order, my lord,” Yoroff said solemnly. Rothbard was a moment before speaking again, angrily motioning away the Naval field nurses trying to get his attention and address his injuries.
“Get the Doc here,” Rothbard heaved. “I’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Aye, m’lord,” Yoroff answered simply and killed the lens connection before Rothbard could. Navy medics were now gathered around Axis, murmuring to him and amongst themselves. A senior field doctor parted them by his mere presence and induced a wailing howl from Axis, likely doing what was immediately necessary to stabilize his mangled leg. Dragons pulling a gurney arrived shortly and under the succinct commands of the doctor, Axis was lifted onto it. He was a far cry from his usual brash self, hissing, growling, and trying to restrain whimpers of agony. As they carted him away at a near run, Rothbard suspected he had been the first to so brutally maim him. Axis he was sure would recover and recover quickly, but doubly certain was he that the young dragon would not quickly forget this fight. It would invariably make him that much more lethal as a warrior of course, however; Rothbard hoped it would not lead to his holding a grudge for so denigrating a beating. For his part, the fight would be burned into Rothbard’s memory. Unnecessary bloodshed, culminating in death or not, tended to stay with a dragon as the only true warrior’s reprimand.