Mustang waited in the barracks as the time for his team to be ready approached. The other team from the previous shift was back and relaxing, so if there were a call, his team would go out anyway. Their shift had effectively started.

Soon, Mustang was joined by the rest of his team. Aardvark and Strat came in together, laughing hysterically about some joke. They glanced once at Mustang and then laughed some more, leading the stallion to believe they were joking about him. Following them, Blazer waltzed in, looking proud of himself after what must have been good shooting, then by Falcon and Eagle, looking serious but in a somehow casual sense. It was urgent seriousness.

Everypony started suiting up and getting ready for their shift. Normally, they didn’t just suit up and wait, but there was something about today that made them want to be ready. Mustang and Blazer picked up the cue from their teammates and suited up after watching them for a few moments.

Once they were all ready, plates in their clothes, helmets on, swords and crossbows ready, they sat at their bunks and killed time. To start, they played Marefia, a game where two members of the group are with the criminal group the Marefia, one is an investigator, one can save anyone from dying, and the others are just ponies. After that got old, they had a riddle contest, which Falcon took easily.

After that, though, Mustang had to cringe.

“So, Mustang. I see you have a new crossbow?” Aardvark mentioned.

Mustang looked down at it, pretending not to know what was going to happen.

“Yeah, it’s a lot stronger too. The bolts go a lot farther, faster, and stronger, and it’s really sturdy. Just gotta know how to play its strings.”

“I bet Serene played his strings real good,” Eagle said. Mustang heard and was about to come back when Falcon cut in.

“Hardly, he has no tact,” he said, grinning at the young stallion. “Can’t play an unturned instrument.”

“Sick, bro,” Mustang said with a shake of his hooves. “And yeah, Serene made it for me. She just wants to better arm the Air Guard is all.”

“Giving you a special order,” Strat said. “If you’re the Air Guard to her, you better be tough; represent us well in there.” Mustang turned a deep red over his blue coat. “Not what I meant.”

“Yeah Mustang, why so quick to think about her that way?” Aardvark asked. “Rhetorical, of course.”

“She's been very helpful to me,” Mustang said. “And I owe her big for the upgrade.”

“So whatcha gonna do?” Blazer asked. “Show her how your 'twang' matches that crossbow’s?”

Mustang blushed some more. “That doesn’t even make sense,” he said. “I’m gonna offer to take her to lunch eventually, or dinner if applicable.”

“Ooh, a dinner date!” Falcon said. “That never fails.”

Mustang put his head in his hooves. “Aah, cheer up little buddy,” Strat said, patting him on the back. “You’ll get your chance.”

“You guys are the most ridiculous…” Mustang trailed off.

The guys ignored it and Aardvark kept it up. “So, if this date works out well for you and you end up together, what’s the plan after that? They do keep married couples on the same base.”

“Alright, you know what-“

A speak in the corner of the barracks crackled into life. “Fifth squad, fifth squad, report to the runway immediately!”

Aardvark stood up. “How inconvenient,” he said, looking to Mustang. “Guess this’ll have to wait.”

“Maybe they’ll forget?” Mustang hoped.

The stallions gathered up their things quickly ad ran out of their barracks to the runway. Something about the voice over the intercom had given them a much-needed sense of urgency, one that wasn’t quite there the last time. Their hooves thudded roughly against the ground as they sprinted off, their hearts racing and minds putting together plans for potential encounters.

When they arrived at the runway, there was a large carriage waiting to carry them to their destination. Before getting any information, they were rushed aboard and told to strap in, as it would be a bumpy ride. They would be going through particularly windy area to get to their area of operation.

On the carriage with them was another team of Nighthawks. That was when Mustang came to realize that this was going to be a huge mission. Two squads of Nighthawks called out at once? This was high priority.

“Aardvark,” one of them said as Fifth Squad took its seats.

“Saber,” Aardvark replied. There appeared to be some tension between the two of them. But given the circumstances, there would naturally be tension in everypony. “What’s going on?”

“We have Intel on a high priority target hiding in some caves in a mountain range further into the colonies than conventional troops can safely go right now,” Saber explained. “It’s in a hostile-controlled valley. We need to drop in about three kilometers out, make our way there, and take out any anti-pegasus weapons.”

“They have those?” Aardvark asked.

Saber nodded. “Yes. We know that they have spread-bolt launchers, ones capable of firing up to forty bolts at once to a fatal vertical range of five hundred feet. They’ve also got explosives that they can tae us out with.”

“How?” Mustang cut in. Aardvark gave him a brief look for jumping in, but then ignored it as Saber continued.

“If they set them into the side of the mountain, and they’re powerful enough, they can use them to blast metal ball bearings or other hard debris to take us out form the sides or even above if we get low enough. Stealth is key for getting to the valley; violence of action is the key of making it fast once we’re there.”

“Sounds like a tough capture,” Aardvark said.

“Kill-capture, to be more reasonable,” Saber said. “If we can’t get him out by our means, we make sure that he does not get out.”

“Alright,” Aardvark said.

Mustang thought about what he just heard while Aardvark went to inform the others who weren’t sitting as close. Was he being sent on a targeted killing mission? He didn’t know what the policies were for wartime, but he had never heard the problem addressed. With the secret nature of the unit, was this a legal action? Mustang saw it as reasonable, but he still felt a bit of apprehension.

And this valley mission. This wasn’t going to be the same as the last mission, where they flew in and swiftly took down their enemies. This was going to be a fight. Last time, Falcon didn’t even seem to break a sweat. Now, looking at him, Mustang saw a level of seriousness and intensity that he hadn’t seen before. Eagle’s scowl was terrifying, like he wanted to rip someone’s heart out and make them eat it.

Blazer was in a similar state to Mustang, sitting a few seats down from him. He was glancing around at the other soldiers, trying to see what his face should look like. He experimented with several looks, but none of them looked all that sure.

“Hey,” Strat said, bumping Mustang’s side.

Mustang looked up at him. “Hey,” he said. “Sounds like quite a mission.”

“Yeah,” Strat said. “Don’t start worrying about things; that’s going to be the worst way to go in there.”

“How helpful,” Mustang said.

Strat smiled. “I know this is your first intense mission, so listen up,” he said. Mustang started listening. “The key to staying calm is your breathing. You remember that, right?”

“Yeah,” Mustang said. He had learned that in Basic.

“So, just because this is your first hardcore mission doesn’t mean breathing won’t work,” Strat said. “Try it. I do it all the time. Most of what I‘ve been saying has been off of a total of two breaths.”

“That sounds difficult,” Mustang said.

“Not when your lungs are as big as mine!” Strat said, smacking Mustang’s shoulder. “It’s the same for you. Just breathe in deep, let it out slow.”

“I’ll do that, then,” Mustang said. Satisfied, Strat turned his attention elsewhere.

Mustang took Strat’s advice to heart and lung and started slowing his breathing. It took some time to calm his breathing down, though, as the ride was bumpy and made for a lot of random forces exerted on him at the most inconvenient moments. When he finally had his breathing rate steady, he kept it going for a time until he felt he knew the rhythm. When he had that, he tried relaxing his muscles until he was loose and relaxed. Already, he could feel his heart rate going down from its previous rapid pace.

Then, it jumped back up a bit when a voice came over the cabin.

“Thirty seconds!” it shouted.

Everyone had their things ready. “Showtime,” someone said.

Mustang checked everything one last time and tried to get calm again for the drop. The back of the carriage lowered, revealing a light blue sky and cold mountain air. They were above the tree line right now, if only barely, but it was still hard to breathe. Once they were out, it would be better.

“Ten seconds!” the voice shouted again.

Everypony stood up in place and faced the back, in two lines and nice and orderly. Fifth Squad stood in the order of Aardvark, Mustang, Strat, Eagle, Blazer, and then Falcon. Saber took the lead on his side, but Mustang neither knew his squad mates nor cared to at the moment. They were going to separate once in self-powered flight and act as squads, so Fifth and the other needn’t know each other. Though, it would be a good policy to have squads know each other’s callsigns.

“Go! Go! Go!” the voice shouted.

Everypony started filing out the back of the back of the carriage and jumping into the icy knives that made up the air. Aardvark and Saber went out together, then pair after pair followed. When Mustang jumped out with his counterpart, he looked briefly at him for an idea of what to do. The other stallion had his eyes dead set on Aardvark, watching for any and all maneuvers. Mustang did so immediately, understanding the importance of keeping his eye son the guy in front of him.

As much as he wanted to and his instincts screamed to, he couldn’t open his wings up this high. He hadn’t been trained for it; only a small contingent of soldiers from the 22nd were trained for arctic warfare and were trained and conditioned for cold air flight. If Mustang or the others were to open their wings now, they would be too cold and freeze up, and they might not open for the landing. Mustang could feel the frosty air nipping at him, numbing his exposed parts and trying to distract him from the task at hand.

Aardvark and Saber, ahead with their legs sprawled out, exchanged a look and nodded. They then proceeded to fold their legs under them and straighten their necks. Mustang knew what that was; it increased agility in the air by reducing drag and giving a pegasus better control when exiting freefall and entering high-speed flight.

He, his companion, and everypony behind him folded their legs and prepared to spread their wings. Mustang felt the air getting warmer; it wasn’t warm by any stretch, but it felt a lot warmer than the higher-altitude air. The, as they were approaching just above five hundred feet above a flat path on the mountain, everypony flared his wings and started zooming forward.

Mustang had trained for this sort of thing, but it was his first time actually doing it now. Wings out and angled backwards for maximum speed, he and the other stallions shot past mountains, boulders, and trees as they lowered further into the valley. They had to be fast now, seeing as it was daytime, and that was where they would get their stealth. If they moved slowly in broad daylight, they would be knocked out of the sky.

The turns were small but fast as they descended and shot through the valley. Mustang mimicked Aardvark’s path perfectly, as did all those behind him. He couldn’t tell that, though; he just figured they were experienced enough to make it.

The squad leaders made a signal with their hind legs to indicate that everyone was to totally flare out, wings, legs, and necks, to slow down and be able to come to a hover. A few seconds after they gave the signal, they did just that, and everypony behind them followed suit. In a short minute, they were all stopped and floating in a hostile valley, hopefully undetected.

“Is everyone still with us?” Saber turned and asked quietly. If he spoke too loudly, his voice would carry through the whole valley.

“I see my squad,” Aardvark replied. “Yours is good too.”

“Solid,” Saber said. “Alright guys, we’re just a little ways out. On the other side of that mountain-“ Saber pointed at the mountain ahead of them. “-Is where we believe the enemy to be. We go over the mountain and separate into our squads. Aardvark, you take Fifth and take the north half of the AO.”

“Got it. You’ll get the south. If you catch our guy or kill him, fly straight up and start flying out. Everyone will see and follow suit.”

“What if we need to retreat?” Blazer asked. Saber shot him a glare, which Aardvark replied to with one of his own.

“Same thing; fly up, get out. We all leave together.” Aardvark looked to Saber. “New.”

“I see,” Saber said. “Make sure you keep him on a leash.”

“No tighter than yours,” Aardvark said. Saber grunted and turned to the mountain.

“Lets move!” he said, getting a head start.

The squads split up and made their ways to the AO. Mustang flew next to Falcon now, Blazer with Strat, and Eagle with Aardvark. Mustang watched Saber leave for a moment, wondering what exactly was going on with that last comment Aardvark made.

“Quite a character, tha tone,” Falcon said suddenly.

Mustang wasn’t sure how to respond. “Can’t say I’ve known him long enough to know his character.”

“Just watch out for him. He’s got a history.” Falcon looked distrustingly at the other squad leader as he left their view.

“What kind of history?” Mustang asked.

“A long one,” Falcon replied. “I’ll give you the brief later.” Mustang made a mental note to bring it back up some time so he could know exactly what was going on within the 35th.

Fifth Squad went around the mountain and landed on the side, keeping close to the rocks and dirt to avoid detection. Looking down, it was clear that this area was inhabited; there was a camp with fires, the retch-worthy smell of cooking meat, and tents. Mustang couldn’t see the inhabitants from this distance, but he could see some of those Air Defense systems that had been described. He did not want to be up in the air if those were in use.

“I see a convenient dividing line down there,” Eagle said. There was a thirty-foot wide river that split the camp into an upper level and a lower level. Fifth Squad had the larger, upper level.

“No kidding,” Strat said. “Perfectly giving us two thirds of the AO. Was there recon before we got called?”

“I heard that the Blackbirds from the 71st were flying all over the country, so there must have been Intel on this. Maybe even pictures,” Aardvark said.

“Again with this,” Falcon groaned. Mustang and Blazer just looked at each other confused.

“What should we do?” Strat asked.

“We have to be really careful with this,” Aardvark said. “With so much area to cover, there could be a lot of defense systems around us right now. We need to hop off the side and flare just enough to stop ourselves from smacking the ground to get down fast enough to evade their defense systems.”

“Are the launchers manned?” Blazer asked.

Eagle looked down. “Yeah, they’re manned alright. And there’s a few of them. We’ll need to watch out as we fall-“

Suddenly, a loud boom sounded off toward the south section of the AO. Upon looking over there, the stallions stopped, shocked; the mountainside appeared to have blown apart. Eagle made some noise and pointed at several figures gliding down to the encampment, counting them as ponies and noting that all were accounted for. The camp below exploded into activity, and already, Air Defense Batteries were firing groups of bolts into the air.

“Dammit, they triggered one! We have to move!” Aardvark barked.

The squad was about to shove off of the rock face when suddenly, up above them, more explosions sounded, powerful enough to shake the Earth. When they looked up, the squad saw huge boulders coming down at them along with blinding dust and debris.

“JUMP!” Strat shouted.

The squad shoved off of the wall and started down at blinding speeds. From below, the gryphons had already spotted them and were firing anti-pegasus bolts, an infamous type of bolt used by the gryphons in the war. It had a barbed tip that would rip apart anything it tore out of, especially wings. They were fired in massive groups from the batteries on the ground, trapping Fifth Squad between a bunch of rocks and a hard place.

Mustang was behind Aardvark, Falcon, and Eagle, followed by Strat and Blazer. Ahead, he saw the stallions evading the large and small bolts shooting towards them like masters, even if the bolts just barely missed most of the time. Mustang was close enough behind that he could mostly mimic what they did to evade the bolts, but still far enough to avoid a collision with one of them.

Eagle and Falcon peeled off to force the gryphons to spread their fire, taking the left and right respectively. Mustang remained with Aardvark, while Blazer and Strat still followed behind. Mustang saw the ground coming closer and closer; only seconds had passed since they jumped. They were nearly on the ground, and once there, they could carry out their mission and make it home to debrief.

But battle plans rarely ever work out like they do on a drawing board; there are too many variables. And now, there was one variable no one counted coming into play.

Aardvark’s left wing exploded into blood and feather as a bolt tore through it. It went cleanly through thanks to Aardvark going down with incredible speed and the bolt traveling up just as fast, and shot past Mustang’s face, peppering him with blood. Mustang saw Aardvark roll in the air and lose control.

His training instincts turned on in that moment. Without a thought running through his mind nor a hair of concern for himself, he sped himself up with his wings to catch up to Aardvark. When he was on his squad leader, he wrapped his forelegs around him and grabbed him, then flared his wings completely to slow down enough to avoid slamming into the ground. Strat and Blazer shot ahead of him to give him cover as he brought their injured leader down.

When they landed, Mustang set Aardvark down and Blazer and Strat set up a defensive perimeter. Falcon and Eagle swept in from the sides, just flying above the ground, to scare any gryphons off. They then circled back and took up positions with Blazer and Strat.

“You alright, sir?!” Mustang asked.

Aardvark looked at his wing. “My wife’s gonna be so mad at me,” he said. “That was one of our favorite things to do together.” He stood up. “I’m still in fighting condition, though.”

“Boss, we gotta move unless we want those rocks to kill us,” Eagle said, referring to the rocks which were maybe ten seconds away form rolling onto the camp.

“Then let’s move!” Aardvark shouted.

With the anti-pegasus bolts in use against them, the stallions opted not to fly and risk their wings again. They quickly ran away from the edge of the camp, where the rocks soon came down and landed in an explosion of dust and pebbles. The dust spread all over the AO, reducing visibility to around twenty-five feet. No one was going to shoot blindly in this, thankfully, so ranged attacks had actually been limited. Unfortunate for Mustang, though, he couldn’t use his special foreleg crossbow.

The team started moving through the dusty camp to find their HVT and take him down. Odds were much better now that this would be a targeted killing mission, not a capture, because the element of surprise had already fallen apart and one of their teammates was injured. They couldn’t be carrying back an injured gryphon when they had to bring back their injured squad leader.

Falcon and Eagle took the lead while Strat and Mustang took the back, with Blazer next to Aardvark, acting as his buddy. There were gryphons scattering everywhere, many females and children, trying to get out of the camp before the major fighting began. At first, the team didn’t actually encounter any enemy fighters, but with the size of their search area, if their target was still around, they would find someone to fight.

“Aardvark, how do we know the target hasn’t already left?” Blazer asked.

“This target likes to stay and fight. It’s how he proves his leadership to his fellow gryphons,” Aardvark explained. “He won’t leave until he has personally killed one of us, which means it’ll be that much easier to find him.”

“How inspiring,” Mustang said.

The team stopped and ducked into a large tent, checking for enemies as they burst in. There were no fighters, but a group of children cowered in the corner. Eagle and Falcon grabbed them and tossed them outside as gently as they could in such a hurry, then watched for anyone who might come into the tent. When no one came, the team regrouped and discussed their next moves.

“Alright boys, we got a large search area and probably lots of enemy fighters,” Aardvark said. “Be on you’re A game. And watch the corners.”

“How do we make this search quicker?” Mustang asked.

“We’ll need to split up,” Aardark said. “We go as fire teams. Falcon, Eagle, take Blazer and search the left half of our section of the AO. Strat, myself, and Mustang will take the right.”

“Yes sir,” Falcon said. He turned to Blazer. “Come on, new blood, let’s go!” The trio left, with Blazer giving one last excited, yet apprehensive glance to his fellow new guy. That left Mustang, Strat, and Aardvark alone in the tent.

“They’ll be swift and efficient,” Aardvark said. “And we have to be as well. Mustang, you’ll take center, Strat, you take the front. I have the rear.”

“With all due respect boss, that ain’t a great idea,” Strat said. “You’re already injured. Let me take the back, and Mustang the front.”

“I’m fine,” Aardvark said.

“Sir, you’ve bled enough that you’ll be just a bit slower; that’s always enough to throw you off and get you killed. Strat is right.” Mustang looked hard at Aardvark while he tried to stand with Strat.

Aardvark harrumphed. “Alright, but let’s get moving! We have an HVT to find!”

The trio left the tent led by Mustang and started sweeping through the camp. There were loud clashes of metal on metal and thuds of hooves against flesh in the distance. Other than that, most of the noise from the landslide had calmed down, so one could hear pretty far. The trio had to step lightly in order to make sure they weren’t detected in the cloudy darkness.

They met several small pockets of resistance, but nothing to tell tales of; the first was a pair of gryphons armed with clubs, quickly dispatched by Mustang in the lead. A bit after, a group tried to sneak up on them, and Strat removed two of them while Aardvark swiftly killed the third. He was noticeably slower, though, and was clearly avoiding exposing his wings to further damage.

After that, they didn’t meet much. The other guys were clearly fighting, as the clashes were still quite audible, but they weren’t finding anyone. The dust was beginning to settle, revealing more of the battlefield, and the team was starting to lose hope. What if Saber’s squad had lost a member to the HVT and he escaped? What if Saber’s squad had been wiped out? No one rose from the dust, and from Mustang’s trio’s vantage point behind the tents, the other half of the AO was unseeable.

Mustang stopped. “Did you guys hear that?” he asked.

“Hear what?” Aardvark asked. They all went completely silent.

“I think we have company,” Strat said.

The stallions took a defensive posture, forming a triangle and facing all directions to see possible enemy movement. In the distance, past the dust, Aardvark saw movement and warned the others, but they saw movement in their own sectors and had to keep their eyes on that. The movement became more and more frequent and more and more visible over the following seconds, until eventually, the trio could clearly see a group of about fifteen enemy fighters around them.

These gryphons weren’t what they had seen so far; they were well armed, and armored all over. They couldn’t fly if they wanted to. Their swords were huge broadswords and even some claymores, and they all had plate armor on. The helmets they wore had small openings at their necks and for their eyes and beaks, and their legs and arms were unarmored, but those were all their weak points. Body shots would do nothing.

There was one gryphon, though, who stood out. He wore no armor, but had paint all over his body in intricate patterns. His beak was cracked and crooked, but the paint on it distracted you form seeing that. His eyes had black circles painted around them, highlighting the whites of his eyes and emphasizing the twisted, evil, and sadistic glare set deep inside. His feathers were all white under the paint, and his claws were a stark black against his body.

“We found him,” Aardvark said. The gryphon started clapping his claws together, making an awkward squishing sound.

“Congratulations. Would you like a plaque, a medal, or a cookie and some milk?” he asked.

“How about your head to bring home,” Aardvark growled.

The gryphon lowered his stance. “How about that?” he replied.

Mustang expected the exchange to go on longer, but it immediately exploded into a violent frenzy of action. The HVT charged at Aardvark and tackled him away form Mustang and Strat and the armored infantry charged at the pair still standing. As much as they wanted to jump in to help Aardvark, they had to deal with the armored gryphons first.

Mustang couldn’t think about Aardvark, lest he wish to die from distraction. He focused on the group of five gryphons coming at him, while seven went at Strat. Three were watching Aardvark.

Mustang quickly assessed what he was up against; armored gryphons heavily armed with more melee range than him, high momentum, slow, and far from agile. The only way he would win this would be to outmaneuver his opponents.

When they were close enough, Mustang took the risk and shot up about ten feet into the air to land behind them. The gryphons were unable to turn quickly, and before they could stop and do so, he knocked out one’s legs and stomped on his neck as he hit the ground. As the others came at him, he hopped up to do it again.

This time, they were ready, though, and they took some swings at him in the air. Mustang was just able to maneuver himself to evade them, but decided not to try it again. Instead, he landed low and charged at one of the gryphon’s legs, head-butting its knees and breaking them. The gryphon collapsed under its unsupportable weight and Mustang chose to leave it. It would die there eventually.

That left three more to go. These ones were a bit more hesitant to charge Mustang, so he took advantage of the opportunity and took aim with his crossbow. None of the gryphons moved because they thought that they would be safe in their armor. They were wrong; Mustang took aim right at the face of one and loosed the bolt into its left eye, and the gryphon dropped to the ground like a sack of bricks.

The remaining two, seeing no easy way to fight their more agile opponent, chose to change their attack route to go after Strat, who had taken three of his own opponents down. With the two new additions, though, he still had five to go.

Mustang jumped into action next to Strat to cover his rear while he tanked through whoever fought him upfront. With Mustang at his back, Strat could comfortably fight how he wanted. When a gryphon came at him with a downward chop, Strat rushed him, stopped the strike before it came down, and used his knife to stab it through the face. Another attacked from the side, but was stopped short when Mustang tripped it and Strat came down full force on its helmet.

Aardvark struggled to get up. He felt weakened by the bleeding from his wing, and his opponent was taking every advantage of it he could. When Aardvark stumbled, the gryphon would press the attacks and force him to roll away, just barely getting back up before the attacks continued.

“Don’t worry Aardvark, we’re coming!” Strat yelled, still battling with Mustang against their own foes.

Aardvark didn’t hear; he was too busy defending himself. The gryphon slashed at him with its talons, cutting into Aardvark’s shoulder and knocking him down again. Aardvark rolled again, this time kicking back at the gryphon and hitting him in the chest. The gryphon was knocked back, giving Aardvark just enough time to stand up.

When he was back up and in a fighting stance, the gryphon took a moment after recovering to analyze Aardvark’s stance. He was clearly weakened and exhausted, and the beating he just received did nothing for him. His friends were too busy with the armored fighters to help, and Aardvark was all his.

“Such a shame,” the gryphon said. “You could have been so useful as a gryphon.”

The gryphon charged forward and head-butted Aardvark while using his talons to keep the stallion’s forelegs down with two stop-blocks. Aardvark saw a brief flash and stumbled backwards, dazed. The gryphon followed up with several slashes across the stallion’s chest, then stabbed into Aardvark’s right shoulder with three of his talons. Aardvark shouted out in pain and fell to the ground.

“Aardvark!” Mustang shouted form the side. He leapt up into the air to provide support to his squad leader and save his life.

But he was too late. Aardvark was trying to get up, facing the gryphon to fight. But when he was half standing, the gryphon brought his arm around and slashed across Aardvark’s throat. Aardvark’s eyes shot open in shock as blood shot form his throat, painting the ground before him and the white feathers of the gryphon leader standing proudly before him.

Mustang rushed to Aardvark’s side, not to fight the gryphon, who backed up and hopped up into the air. He watched with sick pleasure as Mustang hurriedly tried to do what he could to stop Aardvark’s bleeding.

“Aardvark, you’re gonna be fine!” Mustang shouted. Aardvark gurgled, locking eyes with the young stallion, trying to send him to chase after the gryphon leader. Mustang didn’t notice, though, and kept frantically trying to stop the bleeding. The gryphon flew off into the sky and disappeared into the distance. Away from the stallions on the ground, Strat finished off the last of the armored gryphons and ran over. He came over just in time to see the end.

“Aardark, you’ll be alright,” Mustang said. He started to pick his leader up. “We’ll get you out of here!”

Strat looked to the mountains and felt his heart skip a beat. Up there, he saw something they hadn’t been counting on seeing; a small army of gryphon fighters, sitting on the side of the mountain, waiting for an order to descend on them and attack.

“Mustang...” Strat said ominously.

Mustang didn’t look up. “Come on let’s get outta here!” he shouted.

Aardvark looked up, though, and in his fading vision, he saw what Strat was warning the young stallion about. He also saw the other members of his squad flying up into the sky, escaping from the coming storm. Without any kind of warning, he rolled off of Mustang with what little energy he had left, throwing the stallion off completely.

“Mustang, we gotta go! NOW!”

Mustang looked up and saw the massive enemy force. “Then let’s fly!” He tried to pick up Aardvark, but the dying stallion was too heavy and limp.

Strat shoved Mustang away. “We have to go NOW!”

“We can’t leave him!” Mustang shouted back.

A loud series of cheers erupted from the mountainside, prompting the stallions to look up. The army of gryphons launched off of the rock face and was about to fall upon the camp.

“We have to!” With that, Strat took to the air and flew off.

Mustang looked at Aardark on the ground. His squad leader was already dead, lying there, eyes and mouth open, the light sucked away from the shattered windows into the stallion's void where his soul used to be. Mustang could hear the gryphons coming at him. He wanted desperately to take the body out of here, but it would slow him down too much.

With tears in his eyes and guilt trying to drag him to the ground, Mustang took flight and escaped after his team, all the while hearing the victorious cheers and screams of the enemy who had the body of his comrade.

An enemy he would grant no mercy in the future.

Next Chapter: Aftershock Estimated time remaining: 25 Minutes