A giant ripped another tree up and swung it like a bat. There was the sound of metal cracking, and sparks flew as Jim became visible.
Jim’s mech tumbled back, nearly toppling over. He obviously hadn’t been expecting to be found out so soon. “Damn it,” he muttered into the comm. “Any ideas on how we’re going to take care of this?”
There was no time to form a plan. Instead, Alex trusted her gut, and right now, her gut was telling her to engage. Fight. “We get in close,” Alex cried out. “Hit hard and aggressively.”
“I’m starting to think that’s your solution for everything.”
“You’re welcome to solve this problem however you want. I know what I’m doing.”
Alex pulled back on her dragon anchor, sending Chine leaping at the closest giant.
The giant saw Chine coming and braced itself for the attack. As Chine snapped his jaws closed, the giant grabbed the side of Chine’s mouth, keeping the dragon from closing his jaws.
Alex could see that this was going to be a fight. The other giants were starting to surround her. She stretched out her hand to call her scythe blade from her dragon anchor, and it materialized in her right hand. She twirled it elegantly, relishing in the sound of the gears whirring in her robotic arm.
Even though it had taken some time to get used to it, Alex preferred using her robotic arm for fighting. She had a much broader range of motion and more strength than she’d had before.
She wasn’t going to leave her dragon to deal with the giant by himself. She unhooked herself from the anchor and ran up the length of Chine’s back his head, then slashed the giant’s throat, severing its head.
Its body fell, and the rest of the giants’ eyes flashed as if they realized that they were no longer the only predators. Alex and Chine were their equals, if not more. Guess I’ll just have to prove it to you, asshats, Alex thought to herself.
Chine whipped around, slashing the giant behind him with his tail as his rider ran down his right wing, slashing at the giants who were attempting to crowd him.
At Alex’s side, Jim was firing his machine gun, cutting down the ones who were too stupid to turn away from the bullets.
Suddenly, as if they had all received a command, the giants dropped to the ground, hunching so their arms scraped the forest floor. Then they sprang into the air, grabbing the branches of the trees and swinging up into the dark canopy like huge monkeys.
Jim and Alex looked around the clearing. All of the giants were gone. “Uh, what just happened?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know, but giants aren’t supposed to move like that. Last time I saw one, they were not that agile. I thought that was kinda their thing, you know? Big and slow.”
“Explains how they were able to keep up with the pixies.”
A heavy kick hit Alex in the side, throwing her off of Chine. She hit a tree hard and gasped for breath. “Shit,” she muttered as she stood up. She looked above her. Giants were hanging from tree branches, their red eyes glaring.
Alex groaned as she stood up. All right, I didn’t want to go the whole-hog, but we might as well. She ran back to the dragon. Let’s tear through these guys, Chine!
Chine didn’t need to be told twice. The dragon roared, letting everything in the forest know of his presence. Then he leaped into the trees while Jim watched, amazed at Alex’s brazenness.
Alex cut through a giant while Chine snorted a small, controlled stream of fire, burning the branches out from under a couple of giants. Jim saw his opening and bolted toward the creatures, his machine guns blazing, cutting them down as soon as they hit the ground.
Above, Alex and the dragon were making short work of the giants. They moved in unison, Alex traversing Chine’s body as if he were a canvas for her to paint on. They annihilated the giants that remained almost before the monsters knew it.
Chine landed on the ground as Jim wandered over. “You know, if you want, next time I could just stand on the sidelines. I have no problem with you taking care of everything,” Jim joked.
Alex looked around at the bodies that littered the forest floor. “Psh, what are you talking about?”
“You and Chine wrecked those giants. I thought they were going to give us a much harder time.”
“Eh, they made the mistake of assuming Chine and I were attached at the hip. That, and this big guy seems to be as comfortable in a forest as in the air. Plus, they were interrupting our date. So, how about we go see how those pixies are and get back to it?”
Jim smiled as he opened his cockpit. “Oh, so you’re enjoying the romancing?”
Alex started toward where she thought the pixies would be. “I don’t not like it.”
Chapter Three
Alex and Jim found the pixies huddled in an old mushroom-covered tree log. They were sitting quietly, two of the older ones perched near the opening as lookouts. When they saw two humans approaching, they whistled loudly for the rest of the pixies to come and meet their saviors.
The pixies were ecstatic. They had seen the fight or at least the two sentries had, and told the rest of the pixies what they’d seen. The sentries recognized Jim and Alex as dragonriders. They had heard tales of the riders’ prowess in battle and were glad to see that the stories were not exaggerations.
Alex tried not to let the praise go to her head. She was happy they were safe—that was the important thing. But it never hurt to hear nice things. For the most part, being a dragonrider was a thankless job. The corps gave
