Run! It's the commander!
"It's not a weird bird, it's called a harpy…and yes, I can see that they're about to kill us with spears."
"Then do something!"
"I'm working on it! You, just do your job and bring down as many as you can."
"I don't have too many stones, stupid."
"Imma hurt this kid." John said, still looking beneath them, waiting for something.
"Look out!"
A hail of a mixture of arrows and spears were launched from the warriors on the flying bats were launched at them.
"On it!" John yelled, stroking the creature on the side of its neck he wanted it to move.
Despite it's size, it wasn't a sitting duck. Its reflexes were up to per. The harpy made swift, acute turns, dodging a multitude of the arrows being fired, closing and re-spreading its wings whenever it needed to. However, some arrows still found their marks, causing non-fatal, but painful, bloody injuries.
"Hang on!" John yelled.
Suddenly, the harpy made an unexpected turn towards the sky, shocking the warriors on the bats as their eyes streamed along, watching it move upwards.
As it flew, the gravitational pull of their unconventional ascent caused them to lose balance on their feet, as their faces distorted against the crashing breeze. In another mere turn of moments, the harpy began flying backwards, upside down and towards the bats, completing its arched change in direction.
"Now Arjun!"
Arjun's stance was already set and his arms began steaming again. As he let out his breath, he fired, creating an even louder sonic boom as they went towards their target. He took out 3 bats with one shot, sending them crashing down on the other soldiers.
"Why are we turning back?!" Frances yelled.
"There's something we haven't done yet!"
"What's that?"
"The monsters are gaining on us."
"Hang on tight!"
"John!" Frances yelled, trying to use her sickle to swat the flying monster whose jaws kept slamming at her, creating a deafening echo as it narrowly missed a bite with each try. As she kept swinging her sickle, it passed through the monster's gaseous body, and did no harm.
The second beast landed on the second limb of the harpy and immediately sunk its deadly fangs into the harpy's legs, causing a loss of balance mid air, causing it to stop obeying commands and try to set its limb free from the deadly bite.
The harpy began moving in an erratic manner, partly crashing and brushing its limb against the trees beneath. As it did, more spears found their marks on its body, further disrupting their flight.
"John! Are you trying to get us killed?" Arjun yelled, still firing his stones towards the bats that chased them, but they were too many.
"I'm waiting for the signal!"
"We don't have time, control your beast, we need to flee while we have the chanc-"
A loud shrill disrupted his speech. It wasn't blown from a close by source, but still, it highly irritated their eardrums with its extremely high pitch.
They all covered their ears as the whistle kept sounding. It was a shriek that no one could ignore as they all pressed hard against their ears.
As it persisted, the bats became very erratic and flew into each other mid air, growling in pain as they crashed to the ground.
"Shit! It's time." John yelled, bringing out his horn and blowing it with his full strength. His veins popped out of his neck in a serpent-like manner as he squeezed his breath into the horn, making it as loud as possible, masking even the whistle's shriek.
Immediately, hundreds of camouflaged shoulders who had already surrounded Jotunheim began throwing flames at the edges of the Kingdom.
As the flames hit the ground, Jotunheim was encompassed with a yellowish glow of ravaging inferno. The tiny flames spread all through the Kingdom with abnormal speed. Something caused this abnormal ignition and it seemed to trace back to the Palace, considering rage at which the fire burned there.
Suddenly, the beasts let go of the harpy and began flying back to the Palace with great speed, the bats too. Frances, Arjun and Adeola were relieved to see the monsters finally turn back.
"We need to leave!" John yelled as the harpy turned to resume its normal course.
"Not so fast!" A voice roared.
Without turning, they could tell who it was and their hearts skipped faster than ropes. Their eyes all opened in terror as cold shivers ran down their spines, knowing who was on their tail.
"JOHN! WE NEED TO RUN! THE COMMANDER IS AFTER US!" Arjun yelled.
"Giddy-up!" John yelled as even the harpy fled for its life.
The harpy flew fast, but the bat Jade rode was just as fast, and gained on them with each flap.
"We'll maneuver our way out!"
The harpy took a nosedive into the forest, flying between the trees, as it hovered only a few meters over the ground.
"Arjun, our lives depend on this. You'll need to take the bat out."
"I can't even see him anymore."
"Me neither, I can't even sense him. The only person I know capable of such stealth is the White Knight and even he needed a gift for it. This guy is good."
"Telling me that isn't helping me concentrate, you know that right."
"I'm sorry."
Suddenly a deathly wind crashed into the harpy, it was the bat.
"Where do you think you're going you bastard!" Jade thundered.
"John go up!"
The harpy struggled with the bat as their wings beat fiercely against one another, a struggle for dominance. As it continued, they both turned sideways as they flew, an attempt to use a more lethal tool to sparr. Their claws.
The two creatures both disobeyed the commands of their riders. The harpy used the talon that didn't hold Frances while the bat used its two claws.
The air was filled with high pitched shrieks as they exchanged blows, twisting and turning against each other.
The monsters' grudge seemed to be deeper than even the humans. But after a few minutes, the bat seemed to have the edge because the harpy used only one talon. However, in a twist of events, it pushed the bat back by landing a scratch on its face before finally obeying John's command to move up.
As it did, the bat also flew up, following closely behind, but when it emerged from the forest, Arjun had a chance to take a clean shot. As the steam from his arms boiled out, he let out a deep breath, and released the shot, finding its mark on the bat's head, shattering it even before the sonic boom was even heard.
As the bat went crashing down, the commander ran on its back. Time definitely slowed down as he sprinted on its back, a demonstration of his pure power and speed. He was determined to capture these criminals.
On reaching the edge of its neck, he launched himself into the air, landing on the harpy's back, and in between John and Arjun.
As they all stood there, stunned, John, being the quickest, ran towards him, trying to stab him, but the commander was just as fast, skillfully kicking his knife to the ground, and jumping over Arjun.
They all watched helplessly as the commander wrapped his chain around the neck of the harpy before he landed. He skillfully twisted its neck with the chain, causing it to crash into a tree in the woods, utterly disrupting their flight and causing a crash to the ground.