(Untitled)

[twoeyesonthesky]

He's mad. He's got to be. Van Zant's survived long enough to get across the ocean, yeah, Quinn's got to give him that, but that doesn't change the fact that the man is absolutely bloody insane-

The old military men had fought the dragons from fighter planes, but their weapons hadn't been able to match the beasts' maneuverability. Van Zant's men

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[one_eyetothesky]

Creedy "rolls" his pointer finger next to his temple as he walks up, though if you don't know him, it probably looks like he's scratching an itch. He walks up behind Quinn.

He didn't move fast, because there was enough fast going on and he didn't want it to become a tugging match between himself and Van Zant. Just pull Quinn back to safety, let these madmen get themselves killed, and take care of his own. That was the plan.

[twoeyesonthesky]

Quinn for his part is plenty happy to let the Americans dash about like maniacs and get themselves killed. The sooner, the better- though he'd rather they drew the dragon off first if it came right down to it. He starts in Creedy's direction-

-and stops because those maniacs are-

"No! No! Not there!" Quinn starts shouting, and dashes for the battlement stairs instead of the shelter. Unless he's completely mistaken, the damned Americans are setting up their guns directly in front of the castle walls!

[one_eyetothesky]

Fuck.

"What the hell do they think they're doing?"

He runs after Quinn. Shit shit fuck and double fuck.

[twoeyesonthesky]

Quinn doesn't answer. He's too busy shouting to Eddie and Jared and anyone else he passes who's reasonably well-positioned in terms of the chain of response, since he's not gonna be able to get the rest of the castle into the shelters. He's got to see this with his own eyes because there's no way he can take this on faith...

They're down at the road, not against the walls proper; that's something. THat's about forty yards of something.

Which is no distance at all to the speck winging its way in from the northwestern horizon as Alex's chopper lifts into the sky.

[one_eyetothesky]

He hears the shouting and changes direction. Quinn doesn't need him; he needs him taking care of things.

"Everybody inside! Now!" he bellows, eyes searching wildly around, doing everything not to notice that speck from the northwest, "Lockdown! Get inside!"

[twoeyesonthesky]

That, at least, they're listening to- the stragglers and worried folk who'd been unsure whether to try and bring in the Americans, or watch them, or what. They hear the voice of authority and they move like the dragon was after them personally.

"I don't believe this, I don't believe this," Quinn is muttering from the battlements. One of the Americans had pressed a pair of binoculars into his hands before dashing to follow his orders, so Quinn's using them. "They were serious! They're bloody flying towards the thing-" He turns his attention Earthward. "That bugger on the cycle's a dead man. What's he doing, anyway?"

[one_eyetothesky]

Creedy's got most everybody moving and as far as he can tell, the only thing that'll keep anyone from obeying orders at the moment would be the Devil himself standing in the way and probably only for as long as it took to knock him aside. That left-

"Quinn!"

He got up to his friend before he tried talking.

"Quinn, man, what're you doing up here? Get inside."

[twoeyesonthesky]

Actually, there's one other person left. One only- and he's sprinting out from the radio room onto the battlements like the dragon's on his tail instead of anyone else's. "Quinn! Creedy!" says Ajay. "Has he planted the last beacon yet?"

"The what?"

Ajay grabs the binoculars away from Quinn and scans the horizon. "The Americans've got a man out on that cycle of his stabbing three imaging beacons into the ground so they can keep the chopper focused on the dragon," he says. "It's the only instrumentation they've got that they seem to think works. There's three men on board who're ready to jump the instant they've got a good clear path over the thing..."

[one_eyetothesky]

"And it's all rubbish and both of you should get inside," he growls, not pleased at all with any of this and dammit he didn't care if that bastard was crazy, he was paying for any trouble that came out of this madness whether he liked it or not.

[twoeyesonthesky]

Quinn's torn for a moment. The Americans were lunatics, but some things you couldn't look away from-

Or you could, with the right stimulus. Creedy's growl cuts across his divided attention and he nods. "All right. All right. I"m going. I'll meet you both in there," he says, and starts back into the castle.

It's just that he really needs to know what's going on- if the Americans bring the dragon too close, there's going to be hell to pay- so hopefully Creedy'll excuse him for heading up to Ajay's radio room instead of down to the shelters, yeah?

[one_eyetothesky]

He's not happy, but he's just glad Quinn's inside. He heads off to check on the children and to get everyone settled down.

[twoeyesonthesky]

He'll head down in a moment, Quinn tells himself. He's just going to listen a little further as the Americans announce it- beacon one's up, that's fine, the chopper's climbing. They've got the dragon coming up hard and fast, and there's the second beacon, that's good too. Alex is calling down to Van Zant and the rest of the men on the ground that she's hit the cloud bank, she's going to stay hidden as long as she can until she's either got visual or the third beacon is up-

-where is that thing, anyway?

"Collins?" crackles Van Zant's voice. "Collins! Report!... shit. Alex, we lost Collins! There's not gonna be a third beacon!"

"That's not good, Van Zant, you can't tell me that..."

"That was our last cycle. I can't get a man out to Collins' last location before the bitch catches up with you. You're gonna have to surface and do this on visuals alone."

"I can't do this without the beacons! You're asking me to throw our men's lives away on a guess!"Quinn puts Ajay's headset down and backs away from the desk. A moment later there are

[one_eyetothesky]

"If you all settle down, we'll tell you the next part of the story," Creedy promises to the assembled children, trying to distract them a bit from what is no doubt coming. A reality of life, of course, a reality of their lives... but that didn't mean he wasn't going to do everything he could to lessen it.

A few bounces and squeaks lets him know he's got an audience, and a few smiles from various other residents of the castle let him know he's got their thanks. He looks around, pulling one of the smaller boys (Adam, as someone'd gotten a bit funny with the naming) into his arms.

"Or do you want a new story?"

There's a variety of calls for different things, all thoroughly distracted.

"All right, the next piece of the old," he agrees, looking around for his partner in crime. He had a feeling Quinn'd want to check on things with Ajay's radio, but he should have been back by now.

Shit.

Well.

"So, as the bag opened, he..."

[twoeyesonthesky]

It's Ross's bridle Quinn grabs, not Rosalind's. They bred the mare in the spring; she'll be dropping the foal next year. If he's lucky enough to survive this it won't matter, but if he doesn't make it back, there's at least the chance of her throwing a colt. Besides, Ross was always faster. Quinn digs his heels into the horse's flanks and leans over his neck, urging him onward towards the jagged landscape where the American motorcyclist's last radio transmission ended.

The dragon's overhead somewhere. That's a thought he's used to. What he's not used to any more is the thrumming sound of an engine in the skies as he frantically searches the landscape. Even so high and far off it nearly drowns out the radio crackle- "Collins! Collins, can you hear me? Shit! Collins! Tell me you just fell off, you son of a bitch!"He sits back in the saddle and Ross neighs, snorting, pawing at the air for a moment. Then the horse calms enough for Quinn to jump down from the saddle and scramble down the loose spree that sent the cycle's wheels astray. "

[one_eyetothesky]

I'm going to kill that man if he's alive. Kill him and mount his head on a pike.

Creedy smiles and bounces Adam along with the tale. He's doing his best to be engaging... if only so that no one else notices that Quinn isn't there either.

[twoeyesonthesky]

And the kids, and their parents, appreciate it. Almost as much as... well, no, there's no room for appreciation in anyone outside right now. It's all going far too quickly. The beacon's up and beeping, and somewhere up above Quinn spots the cloud briefly, horribly lighting up from within-

"NOW!" shouts Van Zant's voice on the radio. It takes Quinn a moment to realise it's not directed at him. The chopper bursts out of the cloud unharmed, followed moments later by an awful reptilian form so familiar that it's everything Quinn can do to keep Ross from bolting for his life.

There are specks in the sky now, three of them, plummeting from the chopper in the dragon's direction. Three men, with no chutes that Quinn can see. Only- from the sound of it- their net-guns and a desperate sort of hope. One fires, and another.

Over the radio there's an anguished scream as one of the men finds out the hard way that his shot wasn't good enough to tangle the dragon properly.