King of the Clouds

The crackle of static blared out from the radio.

"Can you hear me? I repeat, Mobius One, do you read me?"

***"GREETINGS"*** , The Formis whispered, still loud enough to hear from twenty feet away.

"Good. Return to base, a squadron of enemy airships has been spotted in your airspace."

***"AFFIRMATIVE. ENGAGING NOW."***

The static grew louder as the Formis pulled back on his controls, pulling the aircraft upwards. He could barely make out the words coming from his console.

"Mobius One, do -krrt- engage! I repeat! -krrrrrt- not engage!"

***"YOU ARE CUTTING OUT. THE ENEMY HAS BEEN SIGHTED."***

The Formis looked to the distance, spotting three floating vessels, suspended in the air by massive balloons. Two smaller ships on the sides, with a larger one in the middle. He pushed forward on his controls, shooting downwards, then veering off to the side. One by one, he began to count the enemy crews: five on the small ships, ten on the largest. He could see explosions reigning down beneath them, and saw the enemy dropping black spheres from above. They were bombers. Mobius saw one of the crewman point him out and yell, though he could not hear a word. Straightening himself to the same level as the enemy, he reached into his cockpit, pulling out a metallic sphere. He twisted the two halves of it, as a pair of runes began to glow. He threw it in the direction of one of the small ships, as a glowing yellow symbol, like a winged nimbus, blazed to life. As it did, the sphere rocketed towards the enemy vessel with tremendous speed. On impact, the second rune ignited, shaped like a red-hot fork, as a gout of fire exploded out from the sphere, covering the ship with burning fury.

The crew was blown back, bodies charred and burnt, some littered with splinters and shards of metal blown off their own ship. They did not live long with their pain, as the ordinance on board the vessel soon ignited itself, sending the airship careening to the ground like a meteorite of smoking wood and steel.

***"TARGET ELIMINATED."***

As he pulled off yet again, a flurry of shots began flying towards him from his targets. He spun his controls, spinning rapidly, almost throwing him out of his seat. The shots, burning bolts of hot metal, whizzed past him, narrowly missing the wings of his plane. He straightened his craft, shooting upwards again after he built up the necessary speed, before flying over top the smallest of the ships. Above the large balloon fixed to the ship, he turned his plane upside down, only still seated thanks to a thick metal bar holding his chest and legs in place. He reached into the compartment again, casually dropping a metal sphere onto the ship from above. It shot straight through the balloon, onto the deck of the ship, in a spectacle as effective - and as brutal, as the first.

***"TWO DOWN. ONE MORE TO GO."***

He reached down to pull out another runic bomb, but found none. Luckily, he still had one trick up his sleeve. He raced downwards, passing in front of the final ship. It dwarfed his aircraft by a wide margin, but he cared little. Shooting past it, coming out from behind it, he pulled back, as hard as he possibly could, and began to spin. He reached to the other side of his cockpit, pulling out a strange device, sleek in design, mostly wrought from metal but handled in wood, a glowing core affixed to its underside. As he reached the peak of his mid-air roll, he stretched his hand forward, carefully pointing the device at the crewman that was steering the ship. Focusing as hard as he could, with only the smallest of chances to hit, he pulled back on the trigger, letting loose a glowing bullet that shot through the air with, shooting into the back of the enemy pilot. As Mobius pulled off, he looked behind him, seeing the ship begin to plummet. Desperate attempts to correct course were made by the remaining crewmen, but to no avail. The ship began to turn mid air, then soon spun out, falling to the ground with a terrible booming noise, upheaving dirt dozens of feet skywards. The Formis Pilot rolled back again, not fully revolving, correcting his facing at the peak of the maneuver, now heading back towards home. After a few more minutes, the radio came back to life.

"Mobius One, report! What is your status?!"

***"RETURNING TO BASE AS ORDERED."***