Editing City Series:Volume6e Chapter8 (section)

===Part 1===

The eastward acceleration began all at once.

Sylphide pursued the RB-21, flying in its airstream pocket.

Hazel wielded Rein König and Berger wielded Gelegenheit atop Sylphide’s roof.

A half-yard wooden box sat at Hazel’s feet. Its contents were a motley collection.

Rings, short swords, torn-off medals, coins, memos, and more were all thrown inside.

“I asked for anything carrying memory Lives, but I didn’t expect every single one of them to have something.”

“Will you be using that to create the dragon?”

“Yes. I figured using this would allow some of their memories to become a part of this land.”

And…

“I will see them all in my dream. In my dream of standing at the forefront of a thousand years of history.”

She looked up to see the northern sky on her left. A light other than the moon shined near the North Sea there.

That was the North Star.

She recalled when Sylphide had flown up toward that star.

Then Corelle spoke over the exterior speaker.

“We’re approaching our limit here! It’s going to catch up behind us in another 30 seconds!”

Hazel nodded and shouted.

“Sylphide!”

<The Wind races across the sky.>

Sylphide accelerated upwards while keeping itself parallel to the ground. It emerged from the RB-21’s pocket.

The air kept around the ship with inertial control roared as it crashed into the exterior air.

But Sylphide still accelerated. A water vapor explosion instantly passed from the nose to the rear of the ship.

Four shapes lined up alongside Sylphide. They were all Geheimnis Agency fighters that had accelerated along with the RB-21.

The pilots raised a hand in greeting within the moonlit canopies.

Hazel nodded back as a shadow was cast on them all from overhead.

A 100-yard oblong ship flew above them. The steel projectile had no windows and was painted white.

“The ACBS!”

Hazel looked out ahead while also viewing the skinny contrail trailing behind the ACBS’s armor. It was moving faster, so its tail soon came into view.

She could see the ACBS was flying toward the massive collection of dark clouds in the eastern sky.

The light of its rear thrusters was a sharp red that stabbed into the dark clouds.

The four fighters roared as they approached that red. They scattered, ascended along a diagonal trajectory, and began their attack on the ACBS while leaving a clear path in the center for Sylphide.

Hazel was surrounded by the roaring of wind as she kept her eyes dead ahead on the ACBS’s light.

Sylphide accelerated in response.

The streamlined ACBS was 100 yards along and painted in white aerial camouflage.

But its size was nearly meaningless in combat fought at supersonic speed.

The power of the wind couldn’t be sensed as sound and it couldn’t sweep anything away.

This battle would be determined purely by their combined strength.

Four fighters and one ship repeatedly accelerated to catch up to the ACBS.

At half a mile away, the ACBS’s antiair fire control device locked onto each of the approaching enemy crafts. It predicted their courses and directed its interception weapons toward them.

The homing round launchers on the top of the ship all opened at once and released metal bullets.

All 8 launchers fired 8 rounds each for a total of 64.

They fired three waves like that for a grand total of 192 rounds flying toward Sylphide and the fighters.

The first to respond were the two fighters to Sylphide’s right.

“Leave it to us!”

They flew out ahead and continued forward while launching homing rounds of their own.

A third of the enemy shots focused on those two. Around a dozen were shot down by the fighters’ shots, triggering explosions.

The fighters forced their way through a gap in the explosions, drawing the metal bullets toward them.

Their wings broke through the white wind and then turned so sharply to the right it looked like the fighters themselves were bending.

Most of the ACBS’s homing rounds turned right to pursue them.

But the rapid maneuvering slammed the two fighters into a wall of air. They accelerated while hit by the air resistance.

They were instantly dragged back behind Sylphide.

They disappeared from view and two explosions erupted behind the rest of them.

But no one turned to look that way.

The barrage of homing rounds had been thinned out.

Sylphide thrust its glowing blades forward from its front Power Points.

It swung the swords to slice through the barrage and cover for the fighters to its left.

The view ahead opened up. The ACBS’s tail was visible there.

The ACBS immediately fired again.

The armor on the center of its bridgeless deck opened and curving lines of light shot out.

That was a multi-dragon cannon.

The homing rounds had gathered the enemy together in the center so these more direct attacks could hit them.

Sylphide accelerated, its pair of fangs still in the follow through from its previous attack.

It didn’t have time to ready them again. It needed to ascend and move away for the time being.

But something prevented that.

The two black fighters on its left fired their own lights as they flew out ahead.

They shot through the barrage, but it wasn’t enough. They were hit.

Metal snapped, the buffeting wind bent their frames, and they broke with a sound like shattering glass.

At these speeds, destruction was an instantaneous thing.

Sylphide further approached the ACBS in the time it took for the two fighters to be fully destroyed.

The ACBS’s large white shape was already directly below Sylphide.

All the multi-dragon cannons on the ACBS’s upper surface aimed for Sylphide and fired.

Sylphide was much too close to dodge.

The two fighters were breaking apart from the hits they had taken. Their wings were torn away, their ejection devices launched from their canopies, and their wreckage fell atop the ACBS.

Sylphide saw the ACBS preparing to fire its light past the falling wreckage.

Ordinary weapons fire wasn’t going to take down that ship.

Sylphide’s weaponry wasn’t equipped any better than a fighter, so none of its weapons were particularly powerful.

The ACBS was confident in its superiority as it prepared to fire its multi-dragon cannons.

But something happened atop the Sylphide a moment before it could.

The woman standing on the blue ship had her hair whip in the wind while she swung around a certain color.

That color was white and it took the shape of a sword. The tip stabbed into Sylphide’s roof.

She let out an “ah” and…

“Eingeweide aerial ship Sylphide – Ober Beweisen.”

''The power that questions the future in the name of the wind is the power that resides within me in the present

''The same power is seen in the sky above – the power that brings fear and propels us ever onward

“Panzer Emblem Wind Dragon – activate.”

The transformation power ignited in an instant.

Something like glowing water flowed out from Sylphide’s front armor and instantly covered the rest of it.

The shape slicing through the wind changed with a sound like groaning metal and like splashing water.

A blue dragon appeared in the sky, casting a hostile light on the moonlit ship below it.

The blue dragon grew to more than half a mile long and the ACBS fired its multi-dragon cannons at it.

The wind dragon ignored the bursting sounds as it flew. It soared through the wind and twisted around to arrive behind the ACBS.

The light of the multi-dragon cannons destroyed the falling fighter wreckage.

But it was too late. The majority of the shots lost sight of the dragon and fell to the earth on all sides.

The light exploded, but the sound could not keep up with their speed.

Even the light was left behind.

All that remained were the ACBS and the dragon shining a bluish-white.

The blue dragon opened its maw and roared.

The ACBS fired all of its rear weaponry straight back.

The dragon would have to escape to either the left or right. The woman riding the dragon made the decision.

She stared directly ahead at the incoming barrage and swung her right hand forward to point at it.

“Full speed ahead!”

The dragon responded with a roar and a charge. It slipped through the barrage and crashed into the rear of the ACBS.

The impact knocked the ACBS’s tail upwards and its rear armor split.

But even that only lasted a moment. The dragon accelerated again, roaring as it parted the wind.

The dragon’s light ran from the ACBS’s tail to the nose. The light produced a small explosion as it broke through to the ship’s nose and all the glowing multi-dragon cannons erupted with pillars of fire.

A moment later, the entire ACBS exploded.

The explosion sounded like a crashing waterfall, but even that noise was devoured by the wind dragon.

The explosions’ light and noise were swallowed by the wind dragon’s body.

The blue dragon accelerated and raced forward.