"Black Knight Triplex!" Mikayla christened the combined Armour Core, shouting their name to the skies.

  ". . Mm. It is somewhat dull," Nocturnus mused.

  "Dancing Black Knight!" Asika suggested.

  "No," the ghost immediately shot her down.

  "Skyward Knight," Keldryn tried out.

  "I do not despise that one, but -"

  "Black Sky Dancer!" Asika's enthusiasm was unfettered.

  "Absolutely not," Nocturnus growled.

  "The Threefold Knight That Dances In The Black Sky To Entertain The Gods!"

  Nocturnus cast an aggrieved look at the faerie, who blinked back entirely innocently. ". . I have decided that I will support Black Knight Triplex,"

  "Incoming," Keldryn warned them.

  "That's a terrible name!" Asika protested.

  Nocturnus stroked his beard with one hand, directing their arms with the other. "Or is it . . The Incoming Knight . . it does have a certain -"

  "No, incoming!" Keldryn barked, gesturing at the Roc that was closing the distance once more.

  "I see it," Asika assured him, her smile unwavering as the Black Knight Triplex's wings reached a fever pitch.

  They darted to the side like a hummingbird before the Roc could even launch an attack, then just as abruptly changed direction and started to circle towards the bird's right flank. Harpoons of lightning flew from its eyes, but flew harmlessly away into the sky as the Giant Roc struggled to keep track of its foe.

  Nocturnus swung at its wing, but the Roc wasn't confused enough to allow the strike to land. It ticked its wings in and dove, a net of electricity spreading from its feathers in its wake. The rippling lines of lightning spread too fast and swung too quickly to fully avoid.

  "Tuck in!" Nocturnus commanded, using the few seconds they had to move their shield so that it would cover as much of the Black Knight Triplex's body as it could, soaking up the anti-pursuit power. Keldryn folded their legs up to further reduce their exposed skin. Mikayla braced for impact.

  Asika took the expedient route and turned off their wings.

  The net parted around them with a sizzle of electricity, but rapidly fell away and into the sky. "Are we falling?!" Nocturnus incredulously demanded.

  "Asika, I hope you know what you're doing!" Mikayla did her best to twist their body around, catching a glimpse of the forest beneath them that was rapidly getting closer.

  "You bet our glowing butt I do!" Asika's response was filled with mad delight as the Black Knight Triplex oriented itself into a skydiving position, falling towards the Roc and increasing in speed. "Open fire!"

  The Roc beneath them spread its wings to arrest its fall and pull itself back into the sky, and Mikayla realised the insanity of Asika's plan. When you were this big and able to fly, terminal velocity was just another Technique. Provided you could stick the landing. And, in the meantime, the sheer size of the Giant Roc meant it was almost impossible to miss.

  So she twisted her joystick, projected a targeting reticule onto her display, and opened fire.

  Bluebell rocketed off their shoulder, accompanied by a halo of bullets. The rocket ram seemed to remember their previous fight against this creature's offspring, and let out a bloodthirsty bleat as she drove her skull into the back of the Giant Roc's neck. The impact almost swallowed her up before she found flesh and bone; the bird was so large and thickly feathered that Bluebell almost vanished in its plumage.

  Despite feeling the blows and flinching away from them, the Giant Roc simply wasn't agile enough to avoid what was coming next.

  Nocturnus bellowed as they broke their fall on the back of the Giant Roc, forcing it to drop towards the ground under the brunt of the Black Knight Triplex's weight. Their sword went into its shoulder blades, but electricity so condensed it became a physical barrier intercepted the crippling thrust.

  The once and again Black Knight was too skilled, too precise to stab in a way that might be turned away by a mere active elemental shield, and it was all the Giant Roc could do to preserve its crucial wing joint muscles by using an egregious amount of mana to stop the blow. Electricity sparked up their feet and along the sword, but Nocturnus and Keldryn held firm.

  That lasted until the Giant Roc thought of twisting sideways to dislodge its unwanted passengers.

  With their sword having failed to strike true, the Black Knight Triplex had no friction, no way to stay anchored when the Roc banked sideways at a sharp angle. Mikayla squealed in dismay as their Armour fell towards the forest floor once again, landing in a heap.

  "Get up, get up, we gotta get back in the air!" Asika harried Keldryn and Nocturnus, clapping her hands in encouragement. Mikayla instead focused on deterring the Giant Roc from landing a finishing blow while they were distracted, launching wild sprays of buckshot to fend it off.

  The Black Knight Triplex managed to recover its footing before the Giant Roc could get close enough to attack again, so instead it hovered in place, schemes brewing behind its glowing eyes.

  Asika lifted them into the air, and Nocturnus made what looked like a karate-chop motion. "Attack!"

  They closed the distance once more, swore at the ready. But the Giant Roc had decided it was time to change tactics. After all, this last clash had proven that its size was doing it no favours.

  Flapping into the air, it twisted, shedding storm clouds from its feathers that billowed and expanded in every direction. Soon it had disappeared, and all they could see was an oncoming surge of dark clouds filling the sky.

  "What's it doing?" Keldryn asked, ears going flat.

  "It is creating a smokescreen," Nocturnus assessed. "Its attacks will be much harder to avoid without line of sight,"

  Faint lights, weak bolts of lightning, crackled through the clouds around them, drawing the eye and creating shadows. The Black Knight Triplex had been unable to slow down before entering the cloud. "Keep moving," the old knight continued. "Most monsters armed with abilities like this also have some manner of cloud-piercing vision. If we remain still, we shall be easy prey,"

  "Okiedokie," Asika confirmed, driving their Armour Core to keep flying forwards.

  The clouds around them got slightly brighter, and Nocturnus brought their arms up, ready to defend. But a crescent-shaped wave of lightning flew at them from behind, splashing across their wings and sending them pitching sideways.

  "Whoa! Balance!" Mikayla instructed, trying to coordinate as all three of her teammates each tried to right their Armour Core in their own way.

  Their efforts clashed, sending them spinning in mid-air. "Guys! Straighten up, then start ascending, then change course!" Mikayla took command.

  "No! We have to change direction first!" Nocturnus countered. "Or else -"

  He didn't manage to finish the sentence before the Giant Roc crashed into them.

  With the Armour Core's artificial nerves connected to all of them at once, they all felt the shock of the collision, and then the massive talons that dug into their torso. The proximity brought them into contact with the Roc's lightning aura, which soaked into the Black Knight Triplex and burnt away chunks of their Health pool. The cockpit shook and tilted sideways as they were jerked around, the Giant Roc holding them beneath itself as it ascended.

  "We need to get loose," Their sword swung towards the Roc's leg at Nocturnus' urging and left a bloody wound, but the monstrous bird was undeterred.

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  "I've got it! Mana Assistance, size thirty!" Mikayla commanded the controls around them.

  "Of course!" Keldryn grinned. "No size limit!"

  The Black Knight Triplex swelled, its body inflating like a balloon, stretching and loosening the Roc's grip until it was simply too large for the beast to keep hold of it.

  Their wings snapped out, Asika looking worried even as she got them upright again. "Being this big is chewing through our Mana," A glance at her HUD confirmed it for Mikayla; she could seethe engorged bar shrinking. [MANA: 3257/7500]

  "Give it ten more seconds!" Nocturnus insisted, throwing their sword outwards before the Roc could leave their range. The incredible size worked in their favour, and the sword tore a massive hole in the right wing of the Giant Roc.

  All four cheered, seeing that they had landed a decisive blow. "Now, let us finish it!" Nocturnus hollered.

  "Mana Assistance, back to size 10. Let's not burn the Mana Bar too much," Mikayla commanded - [MANA: 2987/7500] - and the Armour shrank back down to its initial size. Asika slammed a command into her console, and their wings flared, launching the Black Knight Triplex in pursuit.

  A strange feeling had come over Mikayla, so gradually that she almost didn't notice it. It was as though there was a wellspring of power within her chest, with conduits linking her to her three friends. She could feel the ebb and flow of some unquantifiable power, like the Mana she'd come to feel in her veins but more ephemeral and yet more potent too.

  Was this the essence of {TEAMWORK}?

  Keldryn's ears pricked up. "I hear something,"

  The stormclouds parted around them, and for about two seconds they got a perfectly framed shot of the Giant Roc laying in wait. Its wings were spread wide, with extra stitching playing across the gash they'd torn in one of them, and arcs of lightning ere running from all across its body to the tip of its beak.

  Mikayla had just enough time to realise that they'd been baited before the Roc, using its entire body as a coilgun, blasted them.

  The Black Knight Triplex's limbs went wide, collapsing back into the stormcloud. Mikayla screamed, feeling like she was burning all over.

  Her friends didn't seem to be doing much better. "Health?" Nocturnus growled.

  [HEALTH: 1137/5900]

  "Keep going down. We need distance. I'm drinking a Health potion," Keldryn strategised, pulling a potion from his rucksack and chugging it.

  [HEALTH: 1924/5900]

  Nocturnus winced. "Less than eight hundred points of Health?"

  "Cultist potions are crap," Keldryn was already drinking another, grateful for the supplies Anza had given them.

  Asika drove them to backwing, flipping through the air and diving, buying time for Keldryn. A looming shadow in the clouds told them that the Giant Roc was pursuing.

  "We mustn't simply flee! We need to return fire! Have we any Techniques that let us target that which is behind us?" Nocturnus demanded.

  "Can do! Trick Shot!" Asika's digital mana reconfigured on the fly for the Technique, and their sword's tip split apart, a burst of light travelling down its length and into the air.

  "Is that a gun-sword?" Mikayla blinked.

  "Awesome!" Asika hollered, a gleeful sort of shock filling her face.

  While the sword's upgrade had gripped their attention, the magic bullet they'd fired had ricocheted off thin air. It changed direction twice more before flying straight into the Giant Roc's neck, knocking its head sideways and distracting it.

  "What did you do to my sword?!" Nocturnus demanded incredulously.

  Asika brought the Black Knight Triplex into a backflip, spinning upwards and around to take advantage of the opening. Their wings whirred as she beamed, "I improved it! Apparently!"

  Nocturnus knew better than to lose focus, but even as he scored a flying strike that carved a line of blood into the Giant Roc's back, he growled, "Guns! Are! Unmanly!"

  "That's fine, I'm a woman," Asika brushed it off with a jaunty wave in his direction. Nocturnus' eye twitched.

  There was a momentary lull in the battle as the two combatants flew apart and started to turn for another clash. Mikayla took advantage of the moment's respite to side-eye Keldryn while gesturing to the other two members of their little crew. "I can't tell if those two are becoming best friends or mortal enemies,"

  The Giant Roc squawked in pain, starting to tumble from the sky. Its wings went wide and an aura of lightning expanded as it tried to catch itself.

  Asika, capitalising, threw them towards it again. Keldryn took the offered opportunity for a double kick that forced the Giant Roc into a dizzying spiral that sent it spinning towards Astralia's Spear.

  Mikayla glanced at the tower that she'd called home for a few days, what felt like so long ago. And she saw a familiar gash in the side of its stonework. "Asika! We need to knock that thing into the tower!"

  "What?"

  "Turn the tower's wards on it? Worth a try!" Nocturnus agreed.

  "Not sure what you mean, but, kay!" Asika nodded, twisting the Black Knight Triplex's wings to go diving after the Giant Roc before it could recover.

  "We just need to knock it into that hole!"

  "Can do!" As it turned out, an Armour Core that is trying to hit the ground gets there faster than a bird that is not. "Keldryn, be ready to bounce!" Asika commanded, projecting their course into everyone's field of vision. Having an onboard sentient supercomputer really was a huge blessing. "Everyone ready?"

  "Yep," Keldryn assured them, tucking their feet in.

  "Aye!" Nocturnus nodded, bringing their arms in close.

  "Sure," Mikayla's fingers tightened around the controls.

  The Black Knight Triplex hit the ground. On Asika's cue, Keldryn kicked out, the powerful legs of Skyward Grasscutter bouncing them back into the air. Asika minutely adjusted their course and added extra speed with the thrusters in Kagura-no-Shibu's wings.

  "Size twenty!" Mikayla sharply commanded, and two seconds before they collided with the half-stabilised Giant Roc, they doubled in size. Nocturnus brought their Sword around, driving the flat of the blade into the Giant Roc's chest.

  It forced the huge bird backwards, sending it tumbling towards the hole in Astralia's Spear, but it spread its wings and managed to catch itself with a few metres to spare.

  So Mikayla launched Bluebell at its face.

  The Giant Roc's head cracked backwards, Bluebell bouncing off but leaving visible cracks in the keratin of its beak. Twisting and shaking, the injured bird crashed into the damaged side of the wizard's tower.

  By the time Astralia's Spear started to glow with yellow and purple sparks, Asika was already flying them away from the tower. The Giant Roc crashed to the ground, crushing trees beneath its bulk. It struggled, already trying to roll over and put enough distance between itself and the Spear that it could spread its wings and take off again.

  But it was already too late. A vertical purple eye was forming out of sparks of light, glaring down at the Giant Roc.

  Nocturnus brought up their shield to cover the Black Knight Triplex's face and chest, but he needn't have worried. The massive bulk of the Giant Roc was enough to entirely absorb the pillar of purple light that shot down from the tower and impaled it, sending it crashing to the ground with a massive chunk of its body burned away into an instantly cauterised wound.

  Mikayla winced. "Surely it's dead after that . . right?"

  Well, is it?

  Find out on Patreon! :P