Adventures in Summoning

Chapter 33

"How fast can you shift from your full dragon form to your smallest form?" I asked Quin as we walked quickly back towards the beach.

"If need be, just a few seconds. It is much easier and faster to become small than it is to grow larger. Why do you ask?" She looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Because if they shoot those missiles at us, being small might be the only thing that can save us. But I need you to fly us there first," I explained.

"Fly us towards the helicopters?" She inquired.

"To start with, but I want to get closer to the missile launchers and those are likely further away. Those have to be destroyed." It was a long shot, but the missiles were the worst weapons that the enemy had, so they had to be the first target.

Helen and Dee walked over to us, looking nervous. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Helen asked, her voice tight.

"No, I'm not, but none of us have any better ideas, so I have to hope that this works," I answered honestly. "I'd ask you if this is the best idea, but I can't imagine you know for sure. I smiled at her.

"No, I don't know, I haven't seen this in my visions. But I hope so," she ran her hand through her hair in frustration while sighing deeply. "I wish the gift could be more definite sometimes!"

"I hope it works too," Dee added softly. "You two better come back for us!"

"Take care of each other!" I pulled the two girls into a group hug, that Quin immediately joined and squeezed us all tight. I would have liked to stay there all day in the comfort of our group, but another round of explosions pulled us back to reality. I turned to see two dragons falling limply from the sky, while a third spiraled down towards the water, a wing hanging limply.

"We need to go!" I pulled Quin towards the water. "I need you to be your dragon self, and then we're going to fly nice and low. Hopefully, they won't see us too quickly and we'll be able to get close to them."

She nodded and started to grow, her skin and muscles bulging while her wings expanded to immense proportions. I backed up to give her the room on the beach that she needed, though part of her extended into the water, so had plenty of area to grow into. Soon she was back to her enormous dragon form, just as glorious as before. She turned her head to me and nodded. She was ready. I quickly ran over to her, and she lowered her neck so I could climb aboard. I almost slipped a few times since I had to carry the football in one hand, so she finally reached around and lifted me with her other claw with a deep chuckle. I found a comfortable spot amongst her spines, and settles in. "Thanks! Now let's go!" I called to her.

She hunched her legs and then hurled us into the air, her wings beating steadily to get us going faster. It was fascinating to see her body move, and I was once more amazed that this was my lovely mate. We kept low, skimming the waves, as we headed in the direction of the enemy. I could still see a large group of dragons in the air, furiously chasing the helicopters, but not understanding the missiles that kept knocking them down. It was heartbreaking to see their bodies dropping, and as much as I hated how they treated Quin I hoped her family wasn't among any of the dragons that were hurt.

I laid down flat on her neck, wrapping my arms as far around her as I could. Did dragons know about aerodynamics or drag coefficients? Was laying down helping us to go faster, or at least make her work a little less? I have no idea. Did it feel wonderful to lay flat against my mate and wrap my arms around her neck and feel her body heat seep into me? Well, yeah.

We left the islands behind us and flew out over the open water with the other dragons far overhead. There was still a pair of helicopters flying, but they were heading away from the dragons to draw them closer to the missiles. The fight wasn't fair, an ambush that one side didn't even know they were in. So far, nothing had come our way, so we seemed to be low enough to not be seen. But I also wasn't sure how well the radar could see the dragons. For all I knew, they were just aiming at the others to keep the helicopters safe, and we were just lucky so far. I kept my eyes on the horizon, praying that if missiles came towards us, I'd have a chance to say something to Quin in time.

We had been travelling for a good 30 minutes, and a new island was coming into view. Like the majority of the islands we'd seen, it was low in the water, and covered in the same colorful palm trees as the others. The dragons were headed right for it, and the copters they were chasing turned to hover above it. As they slowed and turned, six more helicopters rose from the island to join them. They all began to fire at the remaining dragons that were still above us, and they were joined by five missile trails reaching out to them as well. In seconds, four more dragons were dropping from the sky, though I hoped that some of them might only have been wounded. With the missiles coming directly from this island, I knew the launchers had to be there, we had to act now!

"Quin, fly up now, we have to be fast!" I yelled to her. In an instant, she angled her wings and beat harder, rapidly climbing into the sky. My only hope was that the missiles would target the other dragons first, though I did see two of the helicopters turn and accelerate towards us. This was going to be dicey. I had no idea how close I needed to be, but with the enemy copters closing in, I couldn't risk much more.

"Dive!" I yelled as a volley of rockets screeched towards us. Quin dipped lower and the rockets passed overhead like thunder. "We're out of time, I'm throwing the bomb!" I hefted the glowing football and threw it as hard as I could towards the island. I wasn't a great quarterback, but I could throw it a long way! As I threw it, I saw more missiles coming up from the island. "Quin, get smaller!"

Quin's body twisted under me as I heard the rattling fire of machine guns from the copters. I could see tracer bullets pass us by as we both hurtled towards the water. As she shrunk, she wrapped her arms and legs around me so we would be together, and I tried to bring forth some water elementals to catch us. As they grew beneath us, I connected to the other elementals in the football, and mentally told them what to do, the results were instantaneous.

There was a massive blast in the air where the football had been, and the force of it pressed against Quin and I, pushing us down towards the ocean. We slammed into a column of water that rose to meet us, driving the air from my lungs. I groaned as the water elementals lowered us, but I was able to look up and see the copters dropping like flies. The lightning elementals in the football had hopefully fried all the electronics in the area. The remaining dragons seemed to be circling, unsure of what was happening, but then they started roaring and diving down towards the island where the missiles had been coming from.

With no high-tech weapons, it would be a much different fight, one the dragons should win easily. Bullets weren't going to do much to a full-sized dragon. Speaking of which, we heard a few guns from the island, but only for a couple of minutes, and then it was over other than some triumphant dragon roars.

"Are you alright?" I asked Quin, as she stared up into the sky.

"What did you do?" She wondered; her voice filled with happiness.

I smiled in relief. "Dee said something about why their weapons couldn't go away, and I realized that I might have a way to do that."

She looked over at me as we floated lazily in the water. "And just how did you do that?"

I was about to answer when I saw something odd over the island. A small twister rose into the air, with a man atop it. It hovered there momentarily, as if surveying the area, and then sped off away back towards the human base. "That had to be Talkorn, he's escaping."

"We need to do that as well. The other dragons will be scouring the area for the wounded and any remaining humans soon," she reminded me, and she was right. The banishment would be in affect before dusk, and unless the dragons approached us with a peace offering, I didn't want to be near them. "Let's go get Helen and Dee."

I quickly got the water elementals back up and had us surfing towards the girls. Hopefully, they would be safe, and we could take the boat back towards the human's base. My hope was that they were out of weapons and would be fleeing. Otherwise, we'd have another battle. I wasn't sure if their guns could kill dragons, but they could certainly kill us humans!