The shriek tore through the silence, a sound of tearing metal and predatory rage that echoed off the surrounding buildings.
They froze in place, a tiny, defiant triangle in the middle of the vast, exposed rooftop. Their heads were craned back, eyes scanning the uniform gray of the sky, trying to find the source of the cry.
Then they saw it. It emerged from the low-hanging, hazy clouds, circling high above them. It was magnificent and terrifying. It had the shape of a massive eagle, with a wingspan of at least thirty feet, but it was no bird. Its body was a sleek, aerodynamic fusion of dark, leathery flesh and dull, gunmetal-gray plates of what looked like chitinous armor. Its wings weren't feathered, but were vast, bat-like membranes stretched over sharp, metallic struts. Its head was sharp and avian, with a cruelly hooked beak, and its eyes were large, black, and filled with a cold, terrifying intelligence.
Kai's Observe skill flared.
[Rooftop Harrier]
[Level: 9]
[An alpha predator of the urban skyline. Uses high-altitude diving attacks to crush its prey. Possesses superior eyesight and armored plating.]
Level 9. Stronger than any single creature they had faced, second only to the Inferno Guardian.
"Hold your ground," Kai ordered, his voice a low, steady growl. "Don't break formation. Don't run."
The Harrier continued its slow, lazy circles, a predator sizing up its meal. It was testing them, waiting for a sign of weakness, for one of them to panic and make a run for it. The psychological pressure was immense. Every instinct screamed at them to flee, to find cover, but they held their positions, their weapons ready, their faces turned defiantly towards the sky.
"Ben," Kai said without taking his eyes off the circling monster. "Anything?"
Ben's eyes were glowing with a faint silver light, his Insight skill pushed to its limit. "Its plating is thickest along its back and the leading edge of its wings... a natural defense against ground-based attacks during its dives," he murmured, the information flowing from him in a steady, analytical stream.
"The joints where the wings meet the torso are less protected... a potential weak point, but impossible to reach. Its eyes... its ocular nerves are highly developed, far beyond human limits. They are its greatest weapon..." He paused, a flicker of an idea crossing his face. "And its greatest vulnerability. They are completely unarmored and hypersensitive to extreme changes in light."
He had found it. The weakness.
As if it sensed their discovery, the Harrier decided the time for observation was over. Its circling pattern tightened. It let out another piercing shriek, a declaration of intent.
"It's going to dive," Elara said, her knuckles white on the hilts of her sabers.
"Ben, flash-bang," Kai commanded, his mind locking onto the plan. "You'll have one shot. You have to time it perfectly. Throw it when it's halfway through its dive."
Ben nodded, his hand already in his satchel. He pulled out the last of his "persuasive deterrents," Device Alpha.
The Harrier climbed, soaring higher and higher until it was just a dark speck against the gray clouds. Then, it folded its wings and fell.
It wasn't a graceful dive; it was a plummet. It dropped like a stone, a silent, aerodynamic missile aimed directly at them. The wind shrieked past its armored body as it picked up incredible speed.
"Wait for it..." Kai said, his body tensed, his shield raised.
The creature grew larger, its terrifying form resolving out of the gray. Fifty yards. Forty. Thirty.
"Now, Ben! Now!" Kai roared.
Ben lit the fuse and, with a desperate, two-handed shove, hurled the flash-bang upwards, directly into the path of the diving monster.
The glass flask exploded at the perfect moment. The rooftop was engulfed in a blinding, instantaneous flash of white light and a thunderous CRACK that shook the very air.
The Harrier, its hypersensitive eyes focused intently on its target, took the full force of the sensory assault at near-terminal velocity.
It let out a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, a shriek that was a thousand times worse than its challenge cry. Blinded and disoriented, its dive became an uncontrolled tumble. It tried to spread its wings to brake, but its fried nervous system wouldn't respond. It veered wildly off course, no longer a predator, but a nine-hundred-pound projectile of flesh and metal.
It slammed into a massive, steel HVAC unit near the edge of the roof with a cataclysmic crash of screeching, tearing metal. The entire structure buckled, half of it collapsing under the monster's weight. The Harrier was a tangled, twitching wreck of broken wings and mangled machinery, temporarily incapacitated but very much alive, its pained, furious shrieks echoing across the skyline.
"That's our chance! RUN!" Kai bellowed.
They didn't need to be told twice. They sprinted across the last twenty yards of the rooftop, their boots pounding on the tar. They reached the edge, a fifteen-foot gap separating them from the lower roof of the next building.
Without hesitating, Kai leaped, his enhanced stats carrying him easily across the chasm. He landed in a roll on the gravel of the next roof and spun, ready to catch the others. Elara followed, landing gracefully beside him. Ben was last. He took a running start and threw himself across the gap, his face a mask of terror. He came up short, his fingers scrabbling at the edge of the roof.
Kai and Elara grabbed him, hauling him over the ledge just as the enraged, wounded Harrier finally untangled itself from the wreckage behind them, its furious, blinded eyes turning in their direction. They were across. They were safe, for the moment. And they had just proven that even the alpha predators of this new world could be outsmarted.