Happy belated Fourth of July to everyone! Well, everyone American anyway, and have a good day to anyone not. As most of my readers know, these delays are expected thanks to my real life. Chapter 10 of Children of Earth has already gone off to my proofreader and should be out sometime this week.

The Everlasting Flame

A New Kind of Enemy

Red was in quite a state. They were heading eastbound, which means their little island paradise was somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. They had been traveling for a long time, too, which made sense, considering the ground that needed to be covered. He just had a hard time believing they called them in! By the time they even got there, it might be over! Then there was Cynder and the other girls. Being in such close quarters, after what had happened in the exam room, was hard for him now. Hard to keep himself from getting excited from their feminine scents. Only the thought of what would happen if they saw him, and he wasn't up to the right size, keeps him from getting hard. After all, what would happen if Cynder thinks I'm too small in that area? He asks himself. She would laugh at me, that's what would happen. He can all too easily imagine her starting to laugh, then the others starting to laugh at how big he was, a fear he had as a human rolling over into a fear he has as a dragon. The one good thing about this was it was distracting him. The bad thing was, he doesn't notice the fighter jets flying by until three of them fly right overhead. He looks out the window.

Outside the C17, above and to either side, fighters of all types are flying in from down south. Almost every squadron in Virginia had been sent in, F-15E, F-16C, and F-22 fighters passing the larger aircraft, one squadron of F-15s staying around the larger plane to escort it. Below, around thirty A-10 Thunderbolt II fighters from the Pennsylvania and Maryland Air National Guards are keeping pace with the giant aircraft. Ahead of them, New York City was just coming into view, smoke billowing up from the structures.

Red and the others are looking out the windows at the dark clouds and the fighters, unable to see the shroud in the distance. Mitchell suddenly pokes his head down from the cockpit. "We're five minutes from the drop zone." He says. "Here's the situation. What appears to be a combination force of all sorts of mythical beasts is attacking the city. They came out of Central Park. No dragons were spotted, but the CIA believes this is a force sent by Bordraab. The Army is holding them back, and Marine and Army reinforcements are being flown in. There are some big mother fuckers in there that our people are calling golems. They're made out of rock. A couple of tanks together took one down, but the tanks can't engage very well in the streets, and our infantry is having a hard time." The sounds of explosions starts to come up lightly as the aircraft gets closer to the city.

The F-15's escorting them cook on their afterburners and loose two missiles each, then peel off from their positions. Mitchell grins. "The enemy has air forces too. They appear to be drakes. They have back legs, but their fronts are only wings. I'll let Cynder arrange your plan of battle." Cynder is still engrossed with what's going on outside the aircraft. Red has to tap the wall next to her, and she looks up. "OH!" She was startled. She goes into detail about how to defeat a golem, what to aim for, and how to outmaneuver a drake. Halfway through her briefing she is interrupted as the entire aircraft shakes as some anti-aircraft fire hits nearby the plane. It gets only worse. "They're coming after us!" The crew chief yells. "Opening cargo doors!"

The back of the plane starts to open, and Red is shocked at what he sees, as are the others. They were passing low over the city. The skyline was full of smoke, explosions, and anti-aircraft fire. Before his eyes, a drake pulls up behind the C17 and roars, then peels off, only to be hit by a missile and fall from the sky in a ball of fire, crashing into the Empire State Building. "Thirty seconds!" The crew chief calls! Tears are starting to leak from Red's eyes now as he watches all that's happening. Explosions from flak are blossoming just over top of, and in between, buildings, knocking drakes about his size down out of the sky. A Vulcan cannon on one of the roofs nearby opens up, a steady stream of tracers racing up into the sky to take down one drake after another.

Red moves to the back of the plane with Cynder and the others and looks down. It was worse on the ground. Cars are on fire, smoke haze covering much of the streets from buildings that were hit and collapsed, a Bradley assault vehicle stops next to an Abrams, opening up with all of its machine guns and its 30mm chain gun, the Abrams firing all available guns on it, including its main gun, exploding a store's front entrance fifty feet down the road. They couldn't see what they were shooting at, but they could see the tracers.

"GO GO GO!" The crew chief calls. The right engines were taking hits. Without waiting, Red jumps out, just after Cynder, who twists in the air and shifts up to her natural form, her clothes tearing off and fluttering off in the breeze. The other dragons are behind him and Red roars out in anger! How DARE these creatures attack his people! Right in front of him, an A-10 dives down, its nose sparkling as it fires off its own 30mm gatling gun, strafing the street ahead. The tracers stop short of the line of infantry and tanks firing down the road. Red pulls up and growls loudly, able to see the werewolves now, running down the street, through windows, bodies of civilians, some soldiers, and the beasts themselves strewn about on the street. Red roars as he sees one of them in a corner, away from the advancing horde, advancing slowly on some nook in the wall. He peels off and flies directly at it, landing in the same room and pouncing on the creature, slamming it sideways into the wall. He then whirls it around and slashes it cruely across the neck. His blow was formed out of anger, his claws glow bright golden, and when they strike, the creature's head pops off.

Red hears screaming behind him and whirls, only to see four people hiding in what remains of an apartment. The man was standing in front of his wife and two daughters, the daughters had been who screamed. Red slowly backs up, the girls were young, no older than 8! Yet they had seen this... He turns, spreads his wings, and leaves quickly, heading to the line of troops. They weren't that far away, five already rushing up the stairwell of the building to get the family. When Red lands, the others are already talking to the officer in charge, who had been told about their coming. Cynder looks at him. "Red, you're with me, Toka, you take Chaos and Starla and follow these tanks." She says. The girls nod and follow the two tanks that had started advancing down the street.

Everything was confusing to Red now. He had no idea what was going on, where they were in New York, or what they were supposed to do. He stays close on Cynder's tail, both of them flying around buildings, searching. Cynder calls back to him. "They said there was one golem in the area!" Red has to strain to hear her over the sounds of battle and the wind. "We're going to find them. You keep those drakes off me and I'll kill that golem!" Red gives her a nod and turns left with her around the next building, only to come face to face with the largest creature he'd ever seen. The golem was actually MADE out of chunks of building. They had caught it pummeling another building to get out more debris to rebuild itself. Both dragons set down and look at it, then Cynder charges, roaring loudly. People on the street scream and clear out, and just as Red is about to charge as well, a missile streaks by his head and slams into the golem. Red cringes down some in shock as the missile flies by, it had scared the shit out of him! An Apache attack helicopter settles in just above his head. Red watches, waiting to see what happens. At the end of it, he has a great appreciation for the pilot of the Apache.

Cynder had kept on running, despite the missile streaking past her and slamming into the golem. She had slashed it once, twice, three times, all in the mid section, then jumped up onto the building it was trashing, grabbing on and securing herself with her talons. The Apache then opened up with all of its considerable munitions, both rocket pods emptying, 20mm cannon firing, the whole nine yards. The rockets slammed into the golem, blowing pieces off of it, and after all the rockets had hit, Cynder let go and slammed what was left of the golem into the ground, shattering what was left of it, and dispelling the magic that was holding it together.

Both pilot and dragon had executed that attack without even planning it beforehand, and Red is left standing there, gaping. He had absolutely nothing to do with the fight! Cynder comes walking back over to him as the helicopter pulls up and away, moving up high to clear the buildings and return to an altitude to expend the last of his hellfire missiles. "That was a good pilot." Cynder says. "I'm glad he didn't shoot me." Red nods, at a loss for words. Cynder stares at him for a moment, then nudges him with a wing. "Come on." She says, and takes to the air. Red unfolds his wings and follows automatically, too much in shock still to even reply.

A few blocks away, Tokaimura, Starla, and Chaos are having their own baptism by fire. The tanks had set up a line of fire on another group of werewolfs who were running amuck. Toka was standing back behind the tanks, picking up rocks and throwing them into the werewolf ranks. Chaos gathering up a squad of soldiers behind the tanks, and Starla was with the Bradley, calling out targets for the tanks to hit. When five men were gathered up, Chaos nodded to Starla, who shouts, loudly, to the men on the line and the Bradley's crew. At the order given by Starla, they shift fire to the right and engage the werewolves on that side of the street, sending the creatures running to the other side of the street. Chaos and her men rush forward and into a building where the werewolves had run into, tracking them down.

One of the Army men, noticing what Toka was doing, rushes over. "What are you doing?!" He yells at her. Toka stops. "I'm throwing rocks at them to keep them from forming a group and rushing again!" She says, pointing to the last position they were at, one that had been swarmed by the werewolves, and had ten men die. The officer thinks about that one, then turns and calls to one of his men. "Put down your grenades!" He yells. "Then get the grenades from the others!" He says. Toka smiles. She gets what he's at. She picks up two grenades, has the officer pull the pins, then flies out over the werewolves as they scurry from one side of the street to the other, trying to mass and lash out. Toka passes overhead and drops the grenades. Three seconds later, the two grenades detonate, taking out three werewolves and injuring a forth, the wolf howling out in pain before an explosive round from the Bradley blows it into pieces. When she sets back down, she finds a crate of grenades there from the back of the Bradley, and a young private there, face white in horror from everything that was happening. His only job, now, was to pull the pins on those grenades.

In the building, Chaos was rushing up the stairs in a combination of climbing the walls, jumping to the next flight of stairs, rushing up the last steps, and repeating the process, the soldiers right behind her, amazed at this. She leads them down a fourth story hallway and pokes her head into a room, then roars! The werewolves were tearing a man apart as his horrified family watches, sobbing and frightened, from a corner. One werewolf was already dead from a shotgun would to the chest. Chaos charges in, tearing the door off its frame as she does, and rams the werewolves aside, the corpse falling from their claws and jaws. The soldiers rush in and grab the survivors, three of them coming on Chaos' flanks, unloading their rifles into the werewolves as they try to attack Chaos. The men kill two, and Chaos kills a third, then they leave the room.

Down the hall, Chaos hears something in a room. She rams her head through the door and looks inside. Three werewolves were sitting over the corpse of a woman who looked to be of college age, gore dripping from their mouths. Chaos roars in rage and opens her jaws. From the outside, the windows of a forth story room are blown out by a tremendous torrent of fire, three werewolves flung out of the room they had been in, breaking their legs as they land on the ground below, only to burn to death in agony. Chaos pokes her head out from the hole she had made and snorts at the flaming corpses, then ducks back inside. A few minutes later, she jumps down off the roof with two kids, one in each paw, and daintily lands behind the line. Her men were rappelling down, one of them has a woman holding onto his back.

Starla, by now, has somehow managed to get the Bradley's crew to rig a radio up to her ear. She looks at Chaos, the radio pack itself on her neck. "This was the last group! The Army managed to get a perimeter established around Central Park!" She says. "We need to regroup with Red and Cynder and help it hold! They say they're fighting something bigger than a golem, but that the situation was unique and fluid." Chaos nods and looks to Toka, who is already ready. All three girls take to the sky and head for Central Park.

By now, Red is mostly over his shock and is getting annoyed. Cynder was taking all the kills! He hasn't gotten into a fight yet! He follows her as she pulls up high and lands on the side of the Chrystler Building. "Why aren't you letting me in the action?" he asks. "You've handled everything!"

Cynder simply smiles. "You'll get your shot." She says. "Look, see there?" She asks, pointing into the distance, where three Cobras are fighting against five drakes. An F-22 comes in on a low pass and pops two of the drakes with heat seeking missiles. A cobra explodes as a drake burns it down with a fireball. Cynder is already on her way, making Red slap himself and jump to it, putting on an extra effort just to get there. Cynder bowls straight through the middle of the group of three drakes and Red, coming on fast, flares his wings out wide and brings his fore and hind legs up, slamming into one of the drakes and crushing it against the side of a building. With a back flap and a shake of his head, he pulls away, leaving the drake stuck in the impression in the building their impact made. His first air kill!

Then Cynder tail whaps him. "Don't hit a building so hard! Next time you may do more than daze yourself!" She growls, using anger to hide her worry. She didn't WANT Red in a fight! He wasn't nearly as strong as a male should be! She had him go with her instead of going it alone so she could protect him, then he goes and does this...stupid male.

As Red is shaking his head to clear the dazing of the impact, and rubbing his shoulder where he got tail thwacked, Cynder suddenly about faces in mid air and starts heading towards where they had come from. Red, not wanting to get thwacked again, follows. The duo sets down just behind a perimeter of tanks in central park and stares at what everyone is shooting at. He doesn't notice as Chaos, Tokaimura, and Starla set down next to him, also transfixed.

In the middle of the park was a giant...thing. It was scaled, but not a dragon or a drake. It was like a snake. Flapping around it were gryphons. These gryphons were as big as they were! "That's something Bordraab never thought of." Cynder says. "When he woke his old allies, he woke their enemies too." She says, settling down and watching. The tanks were also shooting at the snake. Their rounds weren't doing much, the snake was too sloped to give APFSDS rounds a good chance at penetrating, especially with them constantly moving, but HEAT rounds were detonating against it. Artillery was not firing on the creature, since the gryphons were attacking it. The last thing they needed was to piss off those gryphons after they had secured the air. The infantry was holding fire, scores of werewolves dead on the ground in the park.

A loud noise grabs Red's attention, making him look up. He sees a massive sight, a B2 Stealth Bomber overhead. He looks out and roars loudly in warning. The gryphons all peel off at the warning, just as the bombs are dropped. The tanks all open up with everything they've got, along with the infantry, tracers streaking into the snake-like thing, which howls out in pain as the rounds hit. Missiles detonate on its head, stunning the snake, blinding it. Then the bomb hits. Red can see it as it streaks in, everything slowed down. The bunker buster arches down perfectly, striking the snake in the head, penetrating into its skull and pushing the head down to the ground, where the bomb hits and detonates, blowing the head of the snake, and much of the front half of its body, into nothing but smoking bits.

As the body of the snake falls still, the soldiers start cheering. That was the last of them! The gryphons start landing around Cynder and the other dragons, preening themselves clean of gore from the snake. They were all bloodied from fighting it, the snake had spiked up scales to make physical attacks a pain to deliver. One of the gryphons, a large male, walks up to Red and plops down next to him. He knew Red was the one who gave the warning, and because of that Red was their ally. Red, on the other hand, is looking at Cynder. "How was it this easy?" He asks. Cynder looks down at the gryphons, then at Red and shrugs.

Starla is the one who answers the question. "The wolves were slow to spread out, so the NYPD was able to get here and start fighting them." She says, looking sad. "All the teams that got here are dead...torn up by the wolves, but they bought enough time for the Army to arrive." She says, a few tears falling from her cheeks.

Red doesn't judge her one bit for the tears. Those brave men had given their lives to protect their city and their people. Who knows how many were saved by their actions and sacrifice. Red walks over to her and rests a paw on her shoulder, just there for her, comforting her.

It is a few minutes before she is able to tell him that her father is a New York Policeman.

That night, almost all the dragons are piled up inside a hangar in Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. They are watching a press conference by the President. The only one not present was Starla. Her father had been one of those brave first responders, and had been killed with his men, fighting to keep the werewolves around central park until the military arrived.

"My fellow Americans." The President says. "Today we experienced a swift and merciless attack on one of the cities that forms the heart of our great nation. At noon, Eastern Standard Time, a group of creatures which we had never seen before started coming out of the ground in central park. They spread quickly into the neighboring buildings, butchering and eating the people there, just as they butchered and ate the people in the park. New York's finest bravely moved in, attacking these...beasts. Though they were outnumbered, they held the enemy in place until our military could arrive to fight them. Even as more creatures arrived, of different types, some in the air, some larger ones on land, some forming out of the rubble of buildings nearby, these brave men and women held their ground.

An hour after first contact, elements of the Tenth Mountain Division entered into the area and started to establish a perimeter around central park. At that time, the 82nd Airborne as well as sections from the new Joint Strike Force started landing in the city, under cover of several fighter squadrons. The creatures were turned back at every point by our military, and two hours after first contact, the last of the beasts was slain.

I would like every American to give thanks tonight for the sacrifice of our brave men and women. They are the embodiment of what makes America great. Their service, their sacrifice, has ensured that hundreds, if not thousands, of citizens in New York City are alive right now." The President pauses for a few minutes to shuffle his papers. "Similar attacks have happened all around the world, with similar results. Whatever these new creatures are, they now face extinction. We have already assembled search teams to hunt down and destroy any lairs of these creatures. These tragedies will not happen again."

Red bows his head and closes his eyes, thinking back to what had happened, the President's words fading to a blur. He thinks back to how he felt when he was flying overhead in that C17, the anger he had felt, so much that he wanted to cry in it. To the adrenaline of fighting that drake. To the werewolf that he killed to save that family. To the fear in their eyes as they looked at him afterwards. It was all so much to bear, and yet somehow he had to. He opens his eyes and is amazed to find a few tears on his muzzle. As he wipes them off, he notices that Chaos is going through almost the same thing he is, wiping away tears.

Cynder seems unaffected, watching the news, seeing footage of the fighting, even seeing them from time to time. She's sure the story would continue to develop as time goes on. Soon they'd be out in the public's eye. Soon their only relief will be their human forms. She sighs and gets up. "Toka, go get Starla, then meet us on the flight line. We need to load onto the transport to head back home." She says, then nudges Red up with her paw. "Come on..." she says, then does the same with Chaos.

Fifteen minutes later they are all up in the air in another C17. Packed in with them all of the gryphons that showed up in the park, twenty in total.