The grey gryphon lets out a vicious caw as she divebombs Petrichor, and the brush tailed wyvern hisses at her as he tucks his wings in to dodge her swiping claws and chomping beak. Barrel rolling out of her way, he spits a blast of noxious frost point blank at Azreal as she passes by him; the force of the blast sends her careening towards his sister, and the hooved gryphon gives a brief, pained screech as the breath attack makes impact. Cirrus swiftly darts out of Azreal’s path, spreading her cloud patterned wings skyward as she manoeuvres above the corrupted gryphon to overwhelm her with a jet of frigid wind.

Azreal lashes out with a swift kick of her hooved hindlegs right before she plummets through the sea of clouds, down to the magically floating isle below, striking the smaller wyvern in the hip. The golden, wispy orbs around the sky blue Stalker’s head flicker violently as she cries out in pain, a sound that sends a horrific pang through Petrichor’s heart.

“Cirrus!” the speckled brown Ravager yells out, his voice filled with sheer panic; much to his relief, his sister grits her sharp teeth in the next instant, regaining her balance midair.

“I-I’m okay!” She reassures her brother, and he heaves a sigh of relief; logically, Petrichor had known that the gryphon’s attack couldn’t possibly have caused a mortal injury or anything of the sort, but still, he worries. “She’s headed down, that’s the main thing, right?”
The Stalker wyvern jerks her head downwards as she speaks, and her brother follows her golden gaze; sure enough, the twin tailed gryphon’s silhouette is easily visible through the clouds, as well as the pale purple light she gives off. While it seems like she’s stabilised her flight path, the wyvern siblings know for a fact that the only thing waiting for Azreal on the island below them is a tarnished Ridgewalker far stronger than either of them.

“We need to keep her grounded for Agate,” Petrichor calls out to his sister as he tucks his wings in again, and swoops down through the clouds to rejoin the fray; both of them are fully aware of the plan, as does their flightless friend, but it never hurts to double check they’re on the same page. Wordlessly, Cirrus follows him in his free fall; he narrows his eyes as he notices she’s still holding her leg in a rather awkward manner, but he knows there’s not much that can be done about it in the middle of a battle against a corrupt gryphon.

The two of them dive through the dense cloud cover, and Petrichor can’t help but cringe as the thick mist clings to his feathers; ice may be one of his elements, but it does little to offset the discomfort of damp plumage. For a few agonisingly long seconds, all the Ravager can see is a wall of pure white; in what feels like an instant, it all gives way for a lush scene of soft looking, bright green grass, dotted with the occasional shrub heavy with flowers, broken up by a thin stream of clear, fast moving water that he suspects must have broken off from a bigger river elsewhere on the island.

This otherwise vibrant meadow in the sky is a stark contrast to the chaos unfurling within it. Azreal lets out an ear splitting screech as Agate clamps down on her hindleg with her strong jaw, and her purple ooze sprays everywhere as she desperately tries to fly away. The masked Ridgewalker struggles to keep the gryphon from retreating back into the sea of white above, stubbornly dragging her backwards step by step. Behind her, a small purple cat seemingly made of stardust arches its back and hisses at the eerie grey Corvus; although for all its feline fury, it wisely makes sure to give the drake and her opponent a wide berth.

Both Petrichor and Cirrus abruptly fan out their feathered wings to halt their descent in the same instant; the brown Ravager sends out a spray of harmless, pale sparks with the motion, but they all fizzle out long before they reach the ground. With Agate still preoccupied with ensuring her foe cannot escape, Azreal sees that the wyverns have returned long before the drake does. The gryphon’s glowing eyes narrow to slits, before she gives up on the idea of escaping for the clouds in favour of lurching forward to rake her razor sharp claws across whatever inch of the Ridgewalker’s unguarded flesh she can reach.

With a pained bellow, Agate lets go of her assailant’s hooved leg, and Azreal succeeds in both leaving deep gashes along her unplated skin and knocking her over onto her side; the Ridgewalker is sent skidding across the lush grass, staining her tarnished scales green. Now free of the drake’s grasp, she begins to surge back upwards into the sky, trying to make a break for more favourable terrain. Petrichor takes a moment to curse under his breath; it had been hellish enough to bring the battle to the ground for any length of time at all, so if the corrupt Corvus makes it back to the clouds, he’s not sure he and his sister will be able to force her back down again. 

Cirrus brings her brother back to attention with a shrill battle cry, and the Ravager can see shimmering frost begin to form in her mouth even as she speaks. “Petrichor, now!”

In the next moment, the sky coloured Stalker lets loose a barrage of freezing wind directly at the gryphon, and Petrichor wastes no time in following up her attack with another bolt of venom laced frost. His sister’s jetstream keeps Azreal from gaining more altitude than she already has, while his own breath knocks the gryphon back to the ground. 

Her shocked caw is cut off as she hits the grass with a loud thud, the breath having been knocked out of her lungs with the impact. Cirrus lets out a spiteful screech at the gryphon who’d attacked her first, one that Petrichor is all too happy to back his sister up on; the cacophony sends the drake’s celestial feline companion running off to take cover beneath the branches of a nearby bush. Groaning, Agate scrambles to her feet in spite of the injuries she’s taken, gritting her teeth through the pain; although she still has it in her to look up indignantly at her airborne friends, her sturdy tail thrashing with annoyance.

“You two took your sweet time getting her down here,” the drake grumbles half-heartedly as she staggers over to Azreal, who awkwardly flails her limbs around in an attempt to stand up again herself; the Ridgewalker may be cranky for the moment, but Petrichor knows she doesn’t really blame the two of them. After all, the brush tailed Ravager would probably be more than a little bit cranky too, if he’d just been mauled by a gryphon he’d had the upper hand over just moments prior. “Took your sweet time following her down, too.”

“Hey, it's hardly our fault she’s about as stubborn as a mule!” Cirrus trills irritably in response, eyeing the gryphon carefully as the avian creature finally regains her footing. “She really did not want to take this fight to the ground…”

“Well, can’t exactly say I blame her, if I’m honest,” Agate concedes, beginning to growl at Azreal as she shambles closer to the hooved Corvus. “You guys wouldn’t want to be grounded in combat either, I’d assume.”

“Not really, no-” Petrichor begins, before noticing the corrupt gryphon spreading her wings as she glares the drake down with a snarl of her own. “Agate, look out!”
Azreal lunges for the masked Ridgewalker with a sound halfway between a caw and a roar, and those deadly claws outstretched for her foe. Rumbling under her breath, Agate shambles to the side, narrowly dodging the gryphon’s talons; in the same motion, she greets Azreal with a too-bright breath attack that crackles with electricity, sending the Corvus skidding to the side again.

This time, Azreal grits the teeth that line her beak through the attack, and lands on her feet. Immediately, she puffs up her feathers and flares out her wings at Agate, screeching out a horrific, piercing cry that Petrichor doesn’t feel like a living being should be able to make; and all three of her draconian foes flinch back in momentary fear.

“Stubborn as a mule indeed,” Agate mutters, before staggering backwards as the gryphon launches herself at her again. Petrichor hisses, readying another breath attack alongside Cirrus; why does he get the feeling they’re going to be here for a while?