"If you let me out now, I can go and help them," suggested Fredric to everybody within the supernatural barrier that edged ever closer to the king's position with every second that passed.
"I can't lower the shield, not even for a split second," replied Richie, slightly more relaxed with channelling all the magic with help from Yoyo's band of young dragons. "Our best bet is to roll on over and absorb them into our shield. If we do that, they'll instantly be protected, and then we can start on the offensive. Letting you out now would place all of us in unnecessary danger."
Despite appearing agitated outwardly, Fredric knew she was right.
"How else can I help?" he asked, genuinely wanting to play his part.
"Keep an eye on the so called corpses we're travelling over. Make sure there are no surprises left in or on them, or that any of them are still living. I'm sure by now their forces can guess our plan, and would like nothing else but to try and stop us reaching our goal at all costs."
Nodding in agreement, Peter's grandfather sidled up to Richie at the front of the shield and, after recognising his own dagger and fuelled by magic, checked every single corpse, naga or dragon, to make sure nothing was missed. Inch by inch, they edged closer to their leader, and the dragon Fredric thought of as his best friend.
Things were getting mightily hairy for the remaining councillor and the King's Guard soldiers fighting in the circle beneath the monarch and Amelia Battlehard. Besieged by dragons and nagas as far as the eye could see, as soon as they cut down one of the dreaded beasts, another would instantly appear in its place. There was no let up, no break, no respite... something had to give, it was inevitable.
A timely kinetic mantra helped her use the air surrounding the dragon's head to warp and crush the skull beyond belief; another enemy collapsed to the floor dead. Unable to even take a breath before yet another took its place, this time of the serpent-like variety, in the blink of an eye Dixie Sadheart reinforced her part of the collective shield, deflected away a barrage of pink and white magic she didn't recognise, and dug deep into what remained of her reserves of mana. So busy was she lining up spell after spell, mantra after mantra, that she didn't even have time to be worried that her reserves were almost depleted. Using a skill she liked to think of as 'ignite', the words inside her wrapped themselves in a good deal of her willpower, and instantly the naga in front of her burst into superhot yellow, blue and red flames. Batting them away madly with its tiny little hands, the beast in question rolled off to one side as the scales around its monstrous face started to melt. Readying her next attack deep within her mind, a particularly vicious mental probe that should in theory strike one of the monsters dead without anyone knowing why, a sharp, piercing pain ripped through her knee and lower leg. Stunned, shocked and panicked all at once, the fearless and courageous dragon looked down past her belly, to find one of the supposed dark dragon corpses chewing on the lower part of her extremity. Trying desperately to shake it off, her momentary lapse in judgement and the pain caused her to forget about her part of the shield. As it sizzled into nothingness, naga arms, teeth and whole bodies tore through the gap, overwhelming poor Dixie, who died almost immediately, whilst infiltrating those light sided dragons' last bastion of safety.
Blowing out an intensely powerful jet of fire that scorched an approaching attacker's wing, forcing her to spiral out of control, smashing firmly into the marble some way away, Amelia Battlehard immediately realised what had happened beneath her. Assessing the situation, not wanting to leave the dragon she was there to protect without a wingdragon, it was only when a telepathic 'GO!' from the monarch entered her mind that she chose to act. Instinctively, she slid down the side of the shield, coming to a halt next to the gap Dixie had left. Brutally smashing the hilt of her stolen sword into the side of a naga's head, rewarded by an almighty 'CRACK', she kicked his body back into the crowd, moved across to plug the opening, and with one effective command, ignited a shield of her own design. In only a few moments after the breach, Captain Battlehard had taken the deceased dragon's place, once again shoring things up. But there was a problem. In the time it had taken for her to get there, some of the enemy had gotten inside their impenetrable fortress, and were now attacking some of the other dragons from the interior of the dome. This did not bode well.
Much too slow for her liking, it was at least working, and because of that, she fed nothing but positive feelings into her link with the familiar that she loved more than any other being on the planet. With a particularly nasty and heavy rock having been removed, she could at least appreciate being able to take a full breath once again, even though it hurt like hell.
'Broken ribs,' she thought to no one but herself. So, with a few full breaths, her head began to clear and her thinking straightened out. Moments later, her magic was there, where it had always been. Wasting no time, she flooded her body, in particular the legs she knew were there but couldn't feel, with all the power she dared, ordering her familiar to slither off to one side. After it had complied, she used a forceful kinetic blast to shake the remaining debris off. It worked a treat. Now to find her bloody father and finish what had already been started.
A female's life was always one of compromises, constraints and in general a juggling act, Amelia Battlehard thought as she rammed her stolen sword up through the jawbone of one of the usurpers that had infiltrated their safe haven, whilst at the same time fighting off a stream of nagas hurling strange magic that even she didn't recognise at her side of the dome. Bad enough those two events on their own, she also had the task of keeping an eye on George, the king, fighting solo above her: multi, multi, multi tasking as she liked to think of it. Inside herself she knew they were running out of time. There were just too many of the enemy to continue to stave off. They needed either a rescue or an escape plan; neither looked very likely though. And with that last thought, whilst assaulting yet another naga, looking straight out in front of her, in the distance, through the horde of attacking serpents, she caught sight of something incredibly unusual and heart warming. A moving shield filled with the dragons she'd last seen cowering over the other side of the battlefield, was only a matter of moments from reaching their position. Briefly her heart leapt, but given everything she was trying to deal with, it really didn't have the time to do it properly.
'Just maybe,' she thought, 'we might get the tiniest bit of respite.'
Throughout all the centuries he'd inhabited the planet, and all the battles and dirty deeds he'd been involved in, never had he ever seen anything like this. It was an impossible battle, the air filled with deadly flying beasts the like of which the earth had never seen before, well... not in such numbers. It was no better on the ground, with barely a square metre free from murdering monsters either in their disturbed dragon form, or nagas slithering in long lines, controlled using dark magic, forced to ignore the pleas of their king and do the dreadful bidding of the newcomer Manson.
Constantly being at risk of being flanked without his fighting partner encouraged his magic to freely flow through him now, his molecules soaking it up before spitting it almost straight back out in some form of offensive magic. Not knowing how long he could keep up this level of supernatural trickery and damage, he could only really concentrate on the moment, and then the next one and the one after that, barely able to think about staying alive in order to protect the ones that had pledged their lives in an effort to keep him safe.