Everyone in France knew where the English quads were: on the front lines as the Mongols launched another offensive against Paris. The hundred thousand mediocre quads that Genghis left in France gave the Mongols the numbers to overwhelm the defenders.
Dawn had barely broke when Billy landed by a French officer busy barking orders, who almost laughed at his bright red suit. Billy had flown over a wave of civilians fleeing west. Driving non-combatants in front of them was a three hundred year old Mongol tactic that never got old. Asked about the English, the officer impatiently waved towards a large hospital by the main highway. Billy discovered the building full of recently wounded soldiers.
He soon found his great-uncle unconscious and burning with fever. A compatriot wet his brow and adjusted his blanket. Billy noted his uncle’s missing leg.
"Will he live?" Billy asked.
"He needs a day to break the fever, then a few more days of rest, which is probably three more days than the Mongols will give us. Those who cannot fly will die here, and we will not leave him.”
High-pitched warnings erupted across the Paris suburbs as friendly quads launched to meet incoming enemies. Going just by numbers, the Mongols enjoyed air superiority.
Billy left his backpack with his uncle and flew out the window. A skirmish line of enemy quads preceded nine hundred two-wanders formation-flying in a huge square block. Mongols had ten times as many two-wanders as quads, and found the best way to use them was to temporarily clear the air of enemy fliers, then have them rise over the target and blast it on their way down. Repeated often enough, two-wanders could destroy even a city as large as Paris. Two-wanders could not replace quads, but could compliment them.
Billy rocketed up, blowing past the quads guarding the formation. Like the two-wanders, he rose in an arc, then fell in a controlled fall in the path of the enemies. At the angle he enjoyed, it was virtually impossible to miss. His pressure waves smacked the first fliers back into their lines, each knocking several others out of the sky. He fell while they rose, so all too soon they collided. The difference was the two-wanders needed both wands to control their flight.
Billy sliced a giant hole in their lines, each swipe taking out several enemies. As they rose, he worked his way down, then raced higher again, cutting a new trench in their formation.
As their leader began their blasting run, Billy dived with them, chopping as he went. Powerful wands from the ground can fire over one hundred meters up, so at two hundred meters they switched their wands to propulsion to fly away for their next run. Billy noticed those on the ground using his father’s longbows, even after all these years. He matched angle to continue cutting them up until the formation disintegrated in panic.
He saw two squads chase a group of French quads, hoping to box them in. They positioned themselves so that the French would have to show their backs to one or the other. Billy poured on speed, but he could tell he wouldn't get there in time. So Billy gave a primal scream that vented all the anger he accumulated in life -- while burning torches from all four wands.
The entire city below him stared up in awe as the scream echoed across the front lines. The Baron was back. And wore red, for some reason.
He sure got the enemy's attention. They not only didn't pounce on the French, but both squads turned on him. Like he always did, Billy let them come, popped out of their way, and cut them from behind.
With the skies momentarily free, Billy flew over the enemy ground forces and fired four wand volleys to let them know the Baron was in town. Mongol squads soon chased him, but he just evaded them to pound the two-wanders on the ground for hours. French quads eventually showed up in force to overwhelm the exhausted Mongol quads.
With the ground forces hiding, Billy flew down the main highway, blasting the wagons that supplied the Mongols, until one of them exploded with such force that it flung Billy threw the air like a typhoon.
Bomb wagons! Normally, a quad must drop below one hundred meters to send a fireball hot enough to detonate a bomb, but he fired four wands at the same time, so the hundreds of two-wanders firing at him from the ground may as well have been shooting at the moon. He started blowing up more wagons and laughed as the Mongols fled the highway.
He dropped down and used his wands to throw the bombs after the fleeing enemy. Some of them could not believe he could levitate bombs over one hundred meters. Some French quads following him joined in the fun as Billy took over more munition wagons. Soon hundreds of French fliers were literally cratering the Mongol ground offensive.