Thunder of Thanasis The Storm

[Bani]

Bani peered out at the storm through the wide windows of their briefing room. It was a dark, swirling mass writhing just a handful of leagues from the city. It was lit with strobes of lightning from within, the sounds of which reached her ears late and diminished. These thunderous booms were muddled amidst the contant, low background roar from far, far away. She had never seen clouds so black, nor those that seemed to move like tendrils in the sky, lashing out before withdrawing into a central mass. A light rain peppered the lenses of her flight goggles, the only influence of the storm at this time.

“…first noticed at dawn,” their commander continued. Bani wrenched her attention back to him from the window. His voice was boring. Like inhumanely boring. It shouldn’t be possible to be so uninteresting when talking about lightning and booms.

“But it is moving quickly. By our estimates it will be over Thanasis in two hours.”

“We’ve had storms before,” Bani blurted. “Bigger than that.”

“Pay attention, rider!” Was the response she got, and she tensed and moved her goggles to her head. It wasn’t her fault this man’s face deflected attention. Her eyes just… slid off his boring, plain features.

“This storm is highly abnormal, as was explained to you. It is too small, too intense, and moving too quickly.” He took a breath, clearly agitated by both the inattentive rider and the task at hand. “In short - we don’t know what it is.”

“So… what? Are we gonna blow it back with our dragons’ wings? Talk to it? It’s a storm.” Bani’s insolence was not new. The only reason she had not be severely punished at this point was due, not to family connections, but to her niche skill. She was fast, clever, and uniquely suited to certain tasks. She wondered why she had been called for this specifically.

“No,” the officer sneered, and his painfully plain face twisted into something like grim satisfaction. “You are going to investigate in person.”

Oh. Good. So she was being punished. They were sending her to die.

Loathe to give this butterface any form of joy, she snapped her goggles back over her eyes and asked “So when does this suicide mission start?”

“This reconnaissance mission will have you gathering information about the storm’s intensity, movements, and source. This flight squad has been specifically selected for the task at hand. Some of you have speed, others durability, others the intelligence needed to figure out what we’re dealing with.” He looked pointedly away from Bani at this last part. “You will approach the storm, investigate as best you are able, and report back. Gather as much intel as you can, but don’t do anything stupid. We cannot afford to lose dragons for intel.” Bani noted that he had said dragons, not riders. “You have ten minutes to prepare.”

Bani glanced over at the others assembled as he left. “I always figured I’d die in an explosion, but lightning is pretty close.”

 

[Leovold]

Reconnaissance of a storm. Hmph. Bani was right in spirit; the commander's instructions made little sense in the context of a natural phenomenon. Then again, that much was obvious. What also should have been obvious was the nature of the storm in question. Thanasis, the nation of dragons, about to be ravaged by a small, localized storm that moved with abnormal speed? Surely it too would be a dragon. Though he supposed the Thagretians could have cooked up some new monstrosity...their nephilons spewing lightning wouldn't be too out of character.

Regardless, orders were orders, and as a Scaleguard it was Leovold's duty to serve and protect the kingdom. He was already armored, and Iralux was likely chomping at the bit out on the landing. Leo turned his smoldering gaze to the pipsqueak of the group.

"I thought you were the adventurous type, Nhalaryn. Is this not a chance for you to break some kind of new record?"

His expression slowly slid into an amused smirk.

 

[Carlyle Arevalo]

"You are certain?"

It wasn't clear who the man leaning into the wall in the corner of the room was speaking to. His voice was little more than a mutter, and his head had turned away from the rest of the group. It was uncharacteristic of Carlyle Arevalo to so readily volunteer for such a mission as this one, esepcially when he was supposed to be on leave while finding a new home, after his previous one had been ransacked by a group of ne'er-do-wells out for his blood.

Even so, as an Ascended of some renown and lauded for his ability, it would have been foolish to deny his help. It didn't matter why.

Arevalo grumbled at whatever unseen entity he converse with, stepping away from the wall and joining with his partners for this little storm-chasing diversion. The violet haired man was familiar with Leovold, heir to the dwindling yet still respected Solherre name. He'd garnered a reputation, both for his ability and his ego. So long as he stayed out of Carlyle's, or rather, Zeodag's way, there would be no issues.

It was the smaller one that baffled him a bit. Bani, she called herself. Seemed a bit of a runt, but they wouldn't have brought her in for this if she wasn't prepared. Arevalo only briefly regarded them both, leaning against the window and peering out towards the looming storm with a scowl.

"If it is just an abnormal storm, our mission is as simple as observation. If there's something more..." And judging from his tone of voice, he certainly seemed to suspect as much. "Then we're the first attempt to quell it before it reaches the city. We go from reconnaissance to the front lines." Carlyle turned his head towards the commander with a sour little smirk on his lips. "I do find your way of sugarcoating such realities to be admirable."

Zeodag was right; Carlyle knew it the moment he saw the storm with his own eyes, imbued with the twisted magic of the Dragon bonded to him. The Commander had no idea what he was sending Solherre and the half-pint into.

What made him nervous, though, was that Zeodag didn't know either.

Bani
Leovold

 

[Bani]

Ten minutes. It wasn’t much, but then again being given any time to even mentally prepare for a mission was a luxury. Bani was already in her flight leathers, lightweight and smoothly contoured to reduce drag. She was tiny, as was her dragon by comparison to anything other than feathered breeds. While his fire was potent enough, and her devices were clever, the pair of them had speed as their main offering. They had to maximize that as much as possible.

"I thought you were the adventurous type, Nhalaryn. Is this not a chance for you to break some kind of new record?"

Bani wrinkled her nose. He had used her mother’s family name that he knew she disliked. Nhalaryn was too stuck up, and the family was just fine with her not carrying their surname along with whatever nonsense she got into. Then again, she figured they would be conspicuously present if she achieved any true honors. Racing medals didn’t count, apparently.

She opened her mouth to retort but her voice stuck in her throat. She paused, mouth open, as his words hit her. Leo was usually an ass so it took a second for her brain to actually listen, and not automatically be an ass right back.

“Ya know what… you’re right.” She then made a fake retching sound with a hand to stomach in poor theatrics. “Sorry, never said that before. Don’t care for it.” She stepped up to the (much) taller man. “Let’s see who can stay uncooked the longest.”

She pointed a gloved finger at Carlyle after his most astute summary. “This guy gets it.”

“Solherre, you have command in the air.” Their commander stated plainly. He clearly had preference for nobility, but he was not about to let the tiny brat have any more authority than absolutely necessary. He left for the flight field. Ten minutes and counting.

Bani looked back out the window. The clouds continued their approach, growing darker. She wondered what the commander could be “sugar coating,” but didn’t want to give Leo the satisfaction of asking.

“So if that’s not just a storm… we’re not just going to ‘report back’ right?”