In the skies just south of Baltimare, 2 shapes were flying in all sorts of weird ways, one large and red, the other small and yellow. It was the latter of the two that was currently losing the fight for her life. Spitfire and the rest of the Wonderbolts had been sent out to locate, and she can quote “A rogue dragon that was terrorizing anything that moved.” Well, she found him, but only after spreading the Wonderbolts’ search pattern to the point where no pony would have a wingpony to call upon if they ran into trouble, a decision she was now sorely regretting. Not only was this guy 5 times bigger than herself, he also had the ability to shoot fire out of his mouth, which only stacked the odds further against Spitfire.
A quick roll here, a rapid climb there, and she managed to dodge yet another one of his attacks, but this had been going on for nearly 5 minutes. If she didn’t turn the tide soon, her flank would be charcoal before anyone could come to help. Her best option was to go north, towards Baltimare, and more importantly, into Rainbow Dashes search area. With luck, the cyan pegasus could even the odds with her combat skills and experience. But just getting to the city seemed to be a near impossible task, every few seconds, she had to break off her mad-dash to dodge an attack from her foe, which was severely slowing her down.
Spitfire knew she had to do something, anything, to get herself an advantage, even if it was only a temporary one. She looked behind her to see the red mass gaining, a familiar sight by now. In one swift but rapid motion, she rotated her wings so that they caught the air in front of her, slowing down her flight dramatically. At the same time, she stretched out her right hind leg and braced for the impact. The red dragon was caught off guard and his snout slammed right into her hoof. Both reeled back from the sudden pause in momentum, but it was Spitfire that recovered first, the dragon rubbing his snout in pain.
She was tempted to press the attack right then and there, but thought better of it. Like it or not, she was outmatched on all fronts, and her best option was to gain distance before the beast recovered. With one hard flap of her wings, she regained the momentum she lost from the momentary stop and made a b-line right towards Baltimare, still miles out.
A roar could be heard and she looked back in shock as the red dragon soared ever closer. Apparently the menace recovered faster than Spitfire had hoped. She needed more time, more distance, but the gambit was up. The dragon got closer and closer, Spitfire could feel its hot breath on her tail. Please, for Celestia’s sake, just a few more miles. She closed her eyes, putting all her might into her wings and praying it was enough.
Then, a new sound came, like a line of firecrackers or a very angry sewing machine. It only lasted a second but the roar of pain behind her was more than audible. She first looked back one more time. The dragon had stopped his pursuit and was gripping its chest. Spitfire could see that some of his scales were chipped or completely torn off on the right side of his torso. He didn’t seem seriously hurt, but the look on his face made it clear that whatever happened, he was not happy about it.
Then came a new sound, a loud humming which turned into a roar as a massive, greenish, brownish bird flew just 50 meters above the pair, only it was not a bird. Spitfire looked again, and saw it was some sort of machined aircraft. She didn’t recognize the build, but she concluded that it was not natural. Sure, she had seen zeppelins, hot air balloons and gliders before, but this was none of those. It seems like somepony tried to recreate the pegasus and failed horribly. Only they didn’t fail! Its speed and agility, while not on the level of Spitfire’s, was incredible for its size, and despite its wings seemingly being fixed solid to the frame, it could still fly and turn unsupported. How a hunk of metal could stay in the air like that was beyond her.
Spitfire decided that now was the time to bolt, she still wasn't sure what happened just seconds ago, but that odd craft had provided her the break she needed, and Luna be damned if she wasted it. She took off again, pounding her wings against the air as she flew faster and faster. She then heard another pair of pounding wings rapidly approaching once again! This moron doesn’t know when to quit!
But as she looked back once again, this time she could see the machine lining up behind the dragon. She then saw what looked to be small explosions coming from its wings, the cracking sound audible again. She saw sparks clang off the dragon's hide as it made a rapid dive to get out of range of whatever this thing was throwing at him.
For her part, Spitfire heard the whizzing right by her ears and felt one of her wing feathers get clipped by something, shearing it off entirely. Thankfully that was the extent of the friendly fire, or what she assumed was friendly fire. At least she now knew what this crazy pilot brought to the battle, even if she didn’t fully understand it. She knew it was some sort of range weapon, probably a spell, casted from the wings that allowed the pilot to engage its targets from a distance, similar to a dragon’s breath.
She stopped her flight and hovered as she witnessed the metal machine drop altitude and stay right on the dragon's tail! Even as the pair clipped treetops, the flying beasts were now locked in a pursuit, except this time, it was the dragon that was on the receiving end of the chase. He banked left, so did the machine. He made a hard right, then increased altitude, so did the machine! Then, the pops were heard again, seemingly missing this time, but the fear on the red dragon’s face could be seen from miles away.
Spitfire knew she needed to intervene before either of them were killed. Sure, she was sent to hunt down the dragon, but not to kill it outright, and now this crazy pilot threatened to do just that! She broke out of her hover and zipped as fast as she could towards the vicious fight.
During that time, the dragon stopped and began to hover, allowing the plane to get closer before he shot out a barrage of dragon's breath. The plane banked hard to the right as it was consumed by the fire for a second. Yet even as the fire faded, it was obvious that unlike flesh and feathers, metal would be much harder to set on fire. All his breath did was singe the paint, giving the craft an even more ominous look than before. This did have the desired effect of forcing the pilot to break off and come around for another pass, a weakness common to fixed winged gliders, Spitfire knew.
But now she had closed the distance and was now seconds away from the dragon. He spun around to meet her and roared in a warning tone, probably not happy that he now had two well trained adversaries to face. Spitfire slowed and spoke up.
“You’re outmatched, and my friend over there will tear you to ribbons if you don't back off!” She pointed her hoof to the circling aircraft to prove her point. “Go back to the Dragonlands, or I will let them continue to test their aviation skills against yours, and I don’t think you want that, do you?”
The dragon winced, then jumped as the aircraft passed above them flying sideways, probably so the pilot could get a good look at what was going on. It then turned and began to fly loose circles around the duo like a hawk circling its prey. Even Spitfire was fearful that whoever, or whatever was piloting that thing, would pounce and knock both her and the red dragon out of the sky with its magical shooters.
The dragon seemed to be on the same wavelength as Spitfire. It nodded hesitantly, then slowly turned around and began a leisurely flight back towards the Dragonlands. Spitfire watched him for a split second before looking towards the craft, who was now slowing down, but still flying to the right of the dragon. Spitfire flew up to meet it, hoping to stave off any accidents. She climbed and leveled out just left of its wing, making a slicing motion across her neck with one of her hooves to signal the pilot to back off. It was only then that she realized that the pilot was not a pony, but some form of monkey. It was hard to tell exactly what it was thanks to its bulky flight suit and mask, but it was definitely bipedal in nature.
The pilot nodded, acknowledgement in his still exposed eyes. Then he made an odd motion with his arms. Spitfire looked closely for a split second before realizing that he was asking if there was a good place to land. She thought for a moment, they were over a forest, but maybe there was somewhere outside of Baltimare where he could land? If not, could his machine land on the Cloudsdale airstrip? Probably not, the craft was not pegasus in nature, so it would probably just tear through the runway if he tried.
A bright flash interrupted Spitfire’s thoughts and she looked up to see what was a…portal? Yes, it was a portal alright, and what was on the other side shocked her. There were more of those contraptions, hundreds, flying over a large city, a city on fire! Some were just like her friend's, green and nimble, while others were larger and gray, all of them locked in some mass dogfight! She couldn’t understand everything, but she knew a conflict when she saw one.
She looked back to the pilot, who now had a determined look in his eyes. He looked back to her one more time, and gave a palm out salute with his hand before pitching his aircraft to meet the portal in a head on coalition. Spitfire just watched as the machine roared through the portal and unleashed a hail of magic into one of the larger, gray machines. She considered going in and helping her new friend, after all he saved her life, probably without even knowing what he was getting into, why not return the favor? But before she could make up her mind, there was another bright flash, and the portal was gone.
She just hovered there for a few minutes, contemplating everything that just happened. She just got a glimpse into another world, one that was probably at war. That would explain why the machine was equipped with such deadly magic, and why the pilot seemed so willing to kill the rogue dragon. His bird was meant for war, and Spitfire prayed that whoever he was, he would make it out alive. She had no doubt he would, after all, he fought a dragon and won, whatever his world had in store for him, he and his machine, his fighter plane, could handle.
“Yo, Spitfire!” The voice broke her trance and she spun around to see Rainbow Dash, a concerned look on her face. “A pony on the ground said the dragon was somewhere in your sector, did you get rid of him already?”
“Yeah,” Spitfire said, her confident demeanor returning. “He was a tough one, but we got him to return to the Dragonlands.”
“We?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow. Oops
“Uh, never mind. Let's get back to Canterlot, I’m sure princess Twilight would be pleased to hear that the dragon is gone.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, still unsure about Spitfire’s slip up.
Spitfire looked back one last time to where the fighter disappeared. How in Celestia's name am I supposed to explain this one?
Author's Note
I figured this concept was fun and exciting, having 2 namesakes encounter each other, one pony, the other machine. I know this story is a little short and I could probably flesh it out more, but I figured there was no point overcomplicating the situation. I was also hesitant on having the spitfire fighter craft kill the dragon, so I decided to add a twist by making it's scales resistant, but not immune to bullets. Just enough to convince it to go away without actually killing it off outright.
Hopefully I did Blighty's fighter justice in this story! Again, if you guys have constructive criticism, I would love to hear it! Hope you all enjoyed, and have a great day!
