"What about my companion? What will she do while we're on patrol?" Beth queried.
"Uh, come with us, ma'am?" Shell answered, quirking a brow and frowning slightly, clearly confused.
"Uh, I don’t know if you noticed, Shell," Beth responded, pointing over her shoulder, "but she's a half-ton wolf. How is she supposed to ride a griffon?"
"Oh, that's no problem," Shell answered with a small laugh. "We'll put her in a basket under Red and Red Jr. Those two are absolutely massive; with their combined strength they barely notice a basket loaded with a couple tons of gear. Your companion will be fine, especially since having it balanced between them will make the ride rather smooth."
Beth glanced back at Blood who, even with very lupine features, was making a rather dubious face. Beth just shrugged and turned back to Shell, "Lead the way."
The elf led them into the massive, barn-like structure where Beth was immediately struck with the smell of hay, feathers, old leather, sweat, and manure. She gave a cough and scrunched her nose, frowning at Shell when the woman laughed at her expression. The elf led the way over to an area with a group of absolutely massive griffons, eight feet at the shoulder and just as wide if not more. Two of them had dark red feathers and the fur of their lion-like bodies was even tinted reddish, and they stepped forward as Shell approached. The woman walked right up to them, scratching their chests with her armored hands, causing them to make happy rumbling sounds. With a command to an attendant, they were quickly harnessed and the "basket" was brought out, something that seemed to just straight-up be a boat they had modified to hook to multiple griffons. The "basket" had a large central area with padding that Blood was easily able to fit in, though they waited until they were on one of the launch areas before actually hooking the basket up.
"Do you want to ride Red?" Shell asked over the wind, the cliff being right next to them causing there to always be some kind of moderate wind at the edge of the fort.
"That's fine, though I'm not a great rider. I've only ever ridden Blood, so I don't really know what I'm doing," Beth replied with a shrug.
Shell waved at Red, indicating for Beth to climb into the saddle, which she did with a single hop. Luckily, she had enough practice with Blood that she didn't make a mess of it, landing squarely astride the massive animal with minimal effort. She inspected the saddle and tack, familiarizing herself to a degree with how it was attached before taking the reins.
"If you want him to stop, just give the reins a firm pull back. If you want him to go a certain way, squeeze with your legs and put more pressure on one side. If you want him to speed up, squeeze with even pressure. They have a limited understanding of simple words like 'fast' and 'slow,' but it's not always reliable in the air with the noise from the wind," Shell explained as the support personnel were attaching the basket to Red and Red Jr.'s tack.
"I think I got it. How long are these patrols?" Beth replied.
"About four hours," Shell shouted over the wind. "I'll be in this rotation, so if you get confused or need me for anything, I'll be there."
"Thanks," Beth called out as Blood got settled and they got ready to take off, Shell just responding with a closed fist salute.
Beth clamped her legs slightly tight, nervous about what was about to happen, and that was all the signal Red needed. He spread his wings while his son, Red Jr., mimicked the gesture, their wings almost touching well over Blood's head. The wolf simply glanced up, Beth noting her calm before the two griffons launched forward, leaping off the ledge and hammering the air with their powerful wings. Beth had the sinking feeling of falling for just a moment before she was pressed into the saddle, feeling the power as they flew out and up, away from the fort and the cliffside. She let out a massive whoop of joy as they circled up with the rest of the company, several late comers joining them after a moment to fill out the rest of the wing.
They swept outward then, leaving the fort behind as they rocketed north for over an hour, their flight speed having to top out over one hundred miles per hour. Beth's force-type helmet didn't block out the wind, but she found herself little bothered by it, likely aided by her well over a hundred points in END. After the first hour they course-corrected to the west, the beginnings of a wide circle that would have them sweeping over a significant bit of land over the next few hours.
Those hours flew by, Beth not even noting the time as she enjoyed the feeling of flying, glancing down a few times to see Blood curled up. The wolf wasn't panicked or upset, but neither did she seem so impressed with the experience after the first few minutes, instead laying in the bottom of the basket and meditating. That or dozing off, Beth couldn't hear the snores over the wind, but she thought the wolf might just have gone to sleep. Well, not everyone had to enjoy the same things, and if flying through the air didn't impress the wolf, it was still a great time for Beth.
But as with everything, all good things must eventually come to an end, and this ending was about what she expected. They had been out for about three hours and flown across a large swath of territory, completing most of their patrol route for this wing, when they spotted something. Beth had been looking at the various griffons around her, noting that they didn't seem to be at all tired, with Red and Red Jr. looking like they had just started a Sunday stroll and not that they had been flying for hours, when a call rang out. One of the lead units that had been ranging ahead shouted just as he had moved a little further up, his enhanced voice reaching the whole squad.
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"Thorns ahead! Multiple flying contacts! Prepare to engage!"
And just like that, they were in the thick of it. At the speeds that both groups were moving, it didn't take more than twenty seconds before they were tangled together, the griffons of her faction giving shouts as the rider maneuvered them against the Blue Thorns, the enemies riding a type of wyvern. The two groups charged straight into each other, the griffons and wyverns pulling slightly to the side at the last possible second, passing close enough that they could bite and claw at each other. Close enough for the riders to get involved as well, the wing Beth was with using lances while the Blue Thorns preferred spears made of a light wood with mana copper tips.
The first pass was fast and intense, with a single enemy coming near Beth and Blood, perhaps thinking them easy prey. It was a rather large mistake on his part, as Red and Red Jr. were true powerhouses, combined with Beth having a rather large sword that could reach out and touch at the distances they passed. She didn't mess about, the fear and adrenaline from fighting five hundred feet in the air at a hundred miles an hour propelling her to swing with all her might, burning Swift and Beastly Blood and Monstrous Strike all at full power. She was able to see the look on the Blue Thorns's face change from a confident sneer to horrified shock as her blade moved faster than he could properly track, sliding over his spear and slamming into his gorget. The look would be forever frozen on his face, as his head sailed free of his body, spinning off towards the plain below them.
The opponent's mount had not fared any better, having met the multiple tons of muscle and claw that was Red. Met and promptly lost to, as the massive griffon dealt a great, smashing slash with his forelegs to the wyvern, ripping its torso open and partially gutting it. He didn't stop there, however, as he kicked the wyvern when it began to tumble as it passed, shredding apart one of its wings and sending it after its rider’s head, tumbling to the now bloody grasses below. Beth roared a battle cry, the power from her stats combined with her buffs fully active causing it to ripple across the battlefield, startling the Blue Thorns while rallying the Red Feathers, the faction she was with. Red and Red Jr. followed up immediately after, their roars resounding as the enemies faltered under their side's onslaught.
The rest of the fight unfolded quickly, with the Red Feathers dishing out heavy damage before the Blue Thorns were able to disengage and break away. The Red Feathers didn't let them just run away as, even though this was a larger air unit than the Blue Thorns normally ran, they always moved around in conjunction with a ground force. With the air unit bloodied and beaten, it presented a good opportunity to make a run at the ground forces. Ground forces which the air unit retreated almost directly to, leading the Red Feathers right into them.
Red and Red Jr. swept down with the rest of the force, though they stayed a distance behind the rest. When they approached the ground, they backed powerfully, slowing down greatly when they were only a dozen feet up. Beth and Blood didn't need direction, leaping from their spots to the prairie below before the two massive griffons ascended again, rejoining their fellows in the air. Beth and Blood dashed forward into the chaotic clump of enemies, many having taken a wound from the sweep of the Red Feathers’s air wing, with a couple having been killed outright.
The two young women hit the disorganized mob like a couple of runaway trucks, Beth's first hit a punch that picked the woman she ran by up and sent her hurtling away, more than a few things in her stomach now liquified. She deflected a spear thrust and punched away a sword swing before twisting to the side and slashing to the right, removing a hand from a wrist. She swayed back and twisted the opposite direction rapidly, bringing her blade around and removing a second head from a neck for the day.
After that it was a blur of spears, swords, blood, and bodies as the two tore much of the enemy company apart. There weren't any of these so-called "elites" that Beth and Blood had been told they were the apparent counter to, so they rather well decimated the opposing unit, with a good bit of help from the rest of the Red Feathers, of course. Once the enemy had been broken, only about half their strength living through the assault, they did manage to retreat with the use of a group speed buff plus some kind of fast-movement potions.
Red and Red Jr. landed nearby, the basket plonking down between them, as did a number of the other riders. Shell was among them and approached Beth and Blood, joy warring with just a little bit of fear on her face. She stopped in front of Beth and gave her another salute before speaking.
"That was one hell of a performance, ma'am. I'm glad command sent you out with us for this."
"It's been a hell of a lot of fun so far," Beth replied. "Both the flying and the fighting."
"I'm glad the flying impressed you, ma'am. As for the fighting, we're just glad you're on our side, I'll say that," Shell answered.
"So, what now? Any more fights this patrol?" Beth asked eagerly.
"I would say hopefully not, but with the two of you here, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. We haven't had such a resounding victory over one of their companies in months."
"Well, I'd be happy with more flying, in any case," Beth replied with a smile, earning a matching one from Shell. Blood slunk over and lay in the basket, curling up with a snort before resuming her sleep. Beth hopped up on Red's back, settling herself in the saddle before the griffons took off with a great leap, and likely a little bit of magic helping them go from a dead stop to full-on flight.
The rest of the first patrol was rather uneventful, as they flew another two hours until they made it back to the fort, finding the place in basically the same state that they left it. Beth was entirely convinced one of the reasons the Celestial Trial of Awakening was so hyped up by everyone was that it was an incredible learning tool. Whether it was the boss rush, fighting a massive beast, the "mock" duels against others, the battlefield with a large number of low level enlisted, the air combat they were doing now, or even the dreaded underwater level, it all served as great training for basically anyone. Be it a future Enforcer like her, or a wealthy scion of a powerful family, or a good prospect of an interstellar polity, or just a nobody rising up from the bottom with nothing but dreams of the pinnacle of everything, it was a great introduction to all kinds of situations and opponents they would likely encounter on what could be a very, very long journey.
Once the initial thrill of the flight had worn off, though the thrill of flying itself remained, the next several patrols that Beth and Blood joined in on went much the same as the first. The second and fourth saw combat with a company from the Blue Thorns, who were a faction that controlled a large piece of territory to the north. The third patrol only saw them encounter a few strong beasts, which Beth was more than happy to tangle with and eliminate. They sat out several rotations during the night, as Red and Red Jr. weren't actually inexhaustible, and carrying Blood for so many hours was starting to tire them, though they could have continued for some time yet before getting to a dangerous state.
The fifth rotation they joined up with started at night, with dawn more than three hours away, most of the flying would be in the dark. The route started like the previous ones, but only an hour in and things changed. They found themselves set upon by a large Blue Thorns air contingent, sweeping down from a much higher altitude to dive bomb through the Red Feathers' formation. The Red Feathers didn't just take this assault lying down, and retaliated with an attack of their own, splitting into a pincer maneuver with practiced ease. The return assault evened out the score a little, and the air unit of the Blue Thorns beat a retreat, as they had several times before.