Ellis Company
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It was a simple in and out.
The two mercenaries moved quickly. Alise took point as they got into the village, dealing out the bulk of the firepower to any of the alini frog-folk who got in their way, pushing aside wet vegetation and tribal decorations in the same motion. Martel had her back, making sure nothing followed, checking the map. They hadn't had a lot of time to prepare, but the idea was, with a mission like this, it wouldn't matter.
The morning was wet and muggy, the coolness of the water itself a strange contrast with the air around them when it dripped on their faces, and Martel shook it off the map as they got past the last of the huts. This was the part they were after, the broad, open area before the water, with two fenced and gated enclosures a several dozen metres across, a few metres high. According to the map, they wanted the one on the left. The one with the reinforced gate, the moat, and the spikes.
Alise gave him an enquiring look and he gave the gesture to verify which one they needed to hit. The look was replaced with an irritated one.
"Nuke it?" Martel suggested, finally breaking the silence. It wasn't like the alini didn't know they were there; quite a few were watching from behind nearby huts, and it was likely even more were in the water. The way Alise had been blasting them with her magic, their target would have had fair warning, too. There would be no element of surprise here.
Alise shrugged, then smiled slightly and began the summoning. This was her favourite part. The part where she could fly, or at least experience the flight, no downsides, no danger. Martel was a more traditional mercenary, combining sword with sorcery, but Alise preferred a more specific approach, focussing on one powerful summon, and studying everything she could about the related engineering fields in order to keep making that one single summon better.
The summon was a drone, fashioned after its technological equivalents, and as she finished the building motions, she cast it up into the air, linking her mind with its guidance, seeing what it saw. This was the hardest part, of course, getting it flying properly in the first place, and amongst the trees and foliage dripping wet with rain, it was particularly difficult, but after it automatically dodged the first few trees, crashed right through another, and tore up a whole grove's worth of leaves, she got it under control, bringing it back towards the frog-folk village with its silent, deadly glide.
Next to her, Martel tapped his foot impatiently.
"It's coming," Alise said.
He raised an eyebrow.
The drone, only about a metre across, clipped out of the trees and soared overhead, disappearing again almost as suddenly as it'd appeared, and the two mercenaries made ready for a fight. Martel drew his sword. A moment later, the missiles it had dropped exploded on the gate, sending it flying.
They ran toward the explosion, not even waiting for it to subside. Their target was the chief, and the intel had said he would be here today, and so here they were too, small party, quick mission.
As a result, they didn't expect the dragon that exploded out of the smoke, grabbing onto the wall and perching, flapping its admittedly somewhat singed wings. Alise was nearly knocked over by the powerful beats, and Martel just stopped in surprise before throwing up a shield to block the force of the wind.
"That's not an alini!" Martel yelled, only somewhat at Alise.
"Ya think?" she yelled back, recovering her footing.
They dodged to either side as the dragon threw a plume of acidic flame at them, and by the time they were up again, the dragon had taken off, rising into the trees.
Martel frowned. "Fireballs, then?"
"We should have had a full squad," Alise said. "We're not at all prepared for this."
"Yeah, well, we're here," Martel pointed out. "So our best bet is to just kill it and not die first."
"Oh, I'm not arguing," Alise said. "Just pointing out the obvious!" In the back of her mind, however, she was doing calculations, bringing the drone back around, trying to think how to hit another flying target. It wouldn't be easy, but if she just aimed it right, she could predict how the dragon might dodge their more traditional fireballs, and fling a pair of high-energy ballistic explosives right into it...
Martel started a fireball as the dragon swooped down for a pass at them, and Alise began to do the same, though the odds of her fireball succeeding when she was this distracted weren't very good.
The first fireball the dragon dodged without effort, but not the second, probably because the second was Alise's, and completely crappy. It fizzled upward half-heartedly before finally exploding in the dragon's face, seemingly completely at random, throwing the dragon off its course and causing its own spat fire to miss as well.
With the time this bought, Martel threw another fireball up at the dragon as it winged its way back up, and this one hit with proper force.
"I'd say 'nice'," Martel said, "but that wasn't nice at all."
"Oh, stuff it," Alise said. "Next pass, I'ma drone it. Just fling the fireball straight on and it should hit."
"'Kay," he said, and as the dragon came down at them again, he did exactly that. The fireball missed completely, the drone flew by on its silent wings, and a moment later, there was a great explosion in the air above them, then raining down on their heads, then sitting smokily on the ground around them.
Martel nudged one of the smoking bits with his foot. "Mmm, dragon bits," he said.
Then there was another explosion in the woods and he jumped.
"Er, sorry," Alise said, wiping sweat off her face. "I might have slightly lost control of the drone."
"Slightly," Martel said, his hand on his heart. "Only slightly?" He looked around worriedly, but all the alini were still hiding.
"Was that it, then?" Alise asked. She was shaking slightly.
He shook his head with a shrug, and trotted off back to the enclosure the dragon had come from. Alise followed at a walk. Somehow, even with all the adrenaline, she was too exhausted to move any faster.
The enclosure was basically empty, and somewhat on fire. What looked like a huge nest was shoved against the far walls. Bits of pottery and broken bones were all about the ground.
Martel shook his head. "So the chief was a dragon?" he said incredulously.
"I... maybe?" Alise said.
"Well, there certainly isn't anything else here," he said. "Let's move out, then."
She nodded and followed closely as they made their way back out of the frog-folk village. This time, none dared get in their way.
Later, once they were back in the open jungle, Alise asked, "How the fuck did we even survive that?"
"That should be our motto," Martel said.
"I think that is our motto," Alise said.
They exchanged glances.
