"Little bastard..." Jude muttered, holding his cane out. As Deamon steadied himself, a brilliant beam shot into his eyes, turning his vision into nothing but white light.

"That should last for a good while...hopefully..." Luce said to himself, then rotated his body in time to see the tree he crashed into a second later.

After bouncing from branch to branch, he landed in a bush, numerous bones broken, and his ability to move gone. He saw white mages darting about, and with his last strength, he set off a light flare, hoping to attract somebody.

Arc yelled at Carolin as she left, "Meet yas at the Dragon's Bed tavern!" Then walked out of the flap.

He whistled merrily at his good fortune, and then the airship ground into his mind. "I. Hate. My. Luck."

Then he saw the flare of light. More insentive to get. The hell. OUTTA' THERE.

Deamon held onto the wall while he was blinded. A couple of seconds later, his vision started coming back. Soon it was completely back. "Well, that was pointless." Luckily, Deamon got his vision in back just in time to see Luca crash into a tree and receive lots of pain. "I guess that will do... Ships already ruined enough, me destroying the engine wouldn't do much more..." After sighing, Deamon let out a loud whislte. Black came flying up to the hole in the wall, then Deamon hopped on and they once again flew off, this time to the tents of the N'(Whatever) side.

ooc-It's N'Revat. If you can't remember the name, it's basically Tavern backwards. Rab, it's Bar backwards.

The Airship was falling, but it couldn't be counted out yet. It still carried cannons, as well as soldiers to man them.
Providing the best cover fire it could, the airship did split the concentration of the N'Revat forces, not to mention trying to shoot down a certain black chocobo.
Ripel, on the ground, led the counterstrike back. Mages on chocobos let loose bolts of lightning on the Magitek Armors, the various warriors protected the mages as well as took care of the ground forces. Fighter Mages, like Ripel, took down the mages and long range troops, while assisting the others in the assault.
Despite the downing of the airship, it seemed that Rab still had a chance to win, and Ripel would do his all to seize it.
His best chance was to take down the general.

Meanwhile back at the Rab Camp...

General Clique watched airship begin it's fall. Quickly summoning other mages in assisting in slowing it's descent down, he also sent a small unit of four to go off and investigate the flare.
The remaining Magitek armor they side had was preparing to follow Ripel's unit, while Clique and his elite troops stayed behind at the base.
The Rab general looked for any sign or hint of his counterpart's plans as he altered his orders to suit his purposes.

General Atropos of N'Revat watched the airship fall and smirked, turning to one of his messengers. "Have half of the magiteks continue their assault on the Airship... I don't want a single man on it to survive. Then redirect the rest of the force to taking out the groundforces... they're starting to do some damage."

As the messenger ran off, Ciaran made himself comfortable again, idly thinking to himself.

They probably think this is close... but any moment now their healing tents should begin to explode... I do wonder if they'll press their advantage here or turn back toward the tents. It will be interesting to find out how much value they put on victory...

(ooc: Ohh... I have a blue mage coming after me directly. I feel so honored.)

OOC: May I do one last thing. May I at least direct the fall of the ship.

The door to Elyses cabinet opened abruptly.
"Well, that was a nice tea. Any news or changes?"

"THE WHOLE SHIP'S GOIN' DOWN!!!" Yelled a crewmembre scaredly

"Nothing to worry about, I'll take care of it." Elyse had an aswer
She left the brige and simply went into the engineroom. In there, she told the mechanics to go away and she stayed herself

Dante waited as the white mage staffer fussed over him, closing up the small but painful wounds with her spells.

A tremendous blast of energy shook the sky and all those below it. The staffer shrieked and fell to the ground, but Dante arrested her fall.

" Don't worry about me. Gather your people. Get as many wounded out of here as possible. You're going to get a lot of casualties very, very soon, and you'll need as much space as you can around here."

"H-how do you know? Why should we listen to you?"

Dante roleld his eyes. Another idiot.

"Look, big explosions imply black magic or artillery, neither of which is a good thing for any of us. Now go! You have more important people to treat than me."

As he turned to leave, the staffer asked, 'But what about you?"

Dante could not suppress an ironic smile as he left.

"You don't understand, miss. I died a long time ago."

Then he was gone.

Dezil had gotten the message from the general late since he was now in part of the fiercest part of the fighting, but he got the orders to redistribute the magiteks and launch a surprise attack on the enemy's base. He ordered four of his special prototype magiteks to stay in teams of two and spread out in battle to try to negate the effects of the enemy's magicians, then he sent his own messenger to the commander of the normal magitek armored troops. Soon a third of the magitek armor kept assaulting the dying airship, bringing about it's destruction sooner and trying to blow it out of the sky and end it's assaults. A third went back to the front lines, staying in the defensive bubbles of the anti-magic magiteks and wrecking havoc on the Reb magicians.

Finally the last third were ordered to follow Dezil's special mission. He led them through battle, cutting a swath through the enemy troops and magicians and marching off of the battlefield and into the surrounding forest. Any smart soldier learns to not attack any magitek armor more than necessary if they want a long life, so no Reb troops followed or attacked the "fleeing" magitek armor. Soon they doubled back and marched towards the enemy camp, avoiding the largest concentration of enemy troops. They easily blazed through the guards at the edge of the camp with no survivors to report their position, and set up on a hill overlooking the enemy base. Dezil shouted to his troops, "Arm all long range weapons! When all Armor is ready, open fire on the enemy base for suppression and destruction. Focus fire first on the enemy command tents and medical tents, then we will focus fire on supply tents and soldiers tents. If we haven't pulled back when all of those have been destroyed, we will continue to fire on any remaining targets until I order us to retreat, understood?" Soon all the magitek had confirmed orders, and after that they all soon gave the signal that long range weaponry was armed. Dezil gave the signal to fire, and soon a swarm of Tek Missiles and Magitek Lasers were blazing down on the camp, blasting troops, tents, and supplies in a rain of firepower.

Dante had just stepped out of the tent when the first Magitek Lasers vaporized the tents in front of him. The trails of Tek Missiles and other assorted artillery only confirmed his suspicion that this battle would be lost. It was a fairly simple task to determine that the source of the barrage was from a nearby hill, but Dante knew that even if he destroyed the armors, it would merely be an exercise in futility that would get him killed. It had been hopeless in the first place, facing an enemy with vastly superior firepower and magic.

So why did you do it, then?

Dante smiled. The answer had never been in doubt.

"Because I needed the practice."

Granted, the money and books had been quite a large enticement, but ultimately, it was because he needed to know what it was like, what using his power was like.

And now, the battle all but lost, it was time the lesson ended.

The staffer from just now stumbled out, her face a cross between fear, uncertainty and confusion. Dante enacted a small barrier, just enough to deflect fragments of a missile that had hit too close for comfort, then scooped her up in his arms and took flight towards the capital. He stayed low, among the trees, yet he was travelling like a peregrine falcon. In his arms, his "package" stirred from her shock.

"W-why are you doing this?" Her face reddened.

"I need a witness to corroborate my report. You'll do - you can tell them about the Magitek troops they used on your infantry."

"But what about the others?"

"They're dead. I could not have saved them all, nor would such an act make any difference. Your country lost this battle, and quite possibly the war along with it. I was merely preserving myself."

"That's so selfish! How about all those people who died out there? Don't they mean anything?"

God, I hate idealists...

" You could have died back there, but I saved you. Doesn't that mean anything? Look, you may think you did the wrong thing by leaving your charges behind, but what could you have done? Nothing. If you had stayed with them, you know what you'd have become? Not a healer of legend, not an almighty giver of life, but this."

He stopped them and pointed to a nearby dead soldier, eyes and mouth open in a ghastly silent scream.

"Just like him; another dead soldier."

She was silent for the rest fo the trip, but the tears from the corners of her eyes betrayed her feelings."

OOC: I hope you take your flying into your mana account... Wind spells strong enough to make a person fly around with ease must be draining...

Black had flown up and out of the Airship's bullet range, but every now and then a cannon would try and hit them. Luckily, they never got hit by a cannon.

From above, Deamon watched the battle. The first thing he noticed where the Magitek Armors destroying the tents of the Rab forces. The front line of the Rab forces didn't look to be doing so well either. "Hm... Seems as though the N'evat(?) are going to win this... Unless of course, the Rab have a trumph card."