There came a frantic knocking on the side of the hover-boats currently floating over what used to be the market square. The pilot looked out his viewport to see a red arremer, the sunlight glinting off the fresh, wet red on his shoulder. "Open up, I been shot." It screeched. Nodding quickly, the poor pilot opened up the bay doors. The demon nodded in thanks, then vanished around the side.

The guys sitting back their glanced up as the door began to open, reveling a red demon. They weren't surprised, there had been a guy like that hanging around Viral encampment in the lead up to this invasion. A few discerning souls wondered where he'd gotten that armor, and another few even more astute bandits wondered whether he had been that big before, but none of them expected to be attacked by someone the pilot had let in. At least until Firebrand breathed a tornado into the confined space, and by then it was too late to think about anything.

Firebrand gripped the sides of the door to keep from being pulled in as the vortex threw the men inside around like fall leaves, the rhythmic "THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP" of bodies hitting metal or colliding with other bodies music to his ears. Occasionally a man hit a wall and left a bright red splatter on the interior. Someone tried to take some control by desperately firing his weapon, sending bullets ricocheting around in the chaos. By the time it was all over the lucky ones were left groaning on the ground, too disoriented to move.

His demon appeared in the doorway as Firebrand picked his way among the bodies, making his way quickly to the cockpit door. He had no wound, but it was easy to find fresh blood in this hell. After the younger demon had told him about Viral's recruitment methods, coming up with this plan had been easy. Firebrand headbutted the door, knocking it open to catch the pilot halfway up. Firebrand was on him in a instant, shoving him back down into his seat and placing one claw across his neck. "Keep your hands on the controls if you want to live."

"Commander, there's a bunch of guys still alive back here." came his demons voice from the back.

"Toss them out, leave their gear." Firebrand called back, before turning his attention back to the pilot. "You can fly this contraption. Good. Shoot down the other hover boat and I'll let you fly it out of here, along with everything left in the back. Your commander seems occupied at the moment."

The pilot looked back back at the controls in his hands, weighed his loyalty to Viral against the love he felt for his throat, added in the profit he'd get from the cargo he'd be carrying away, subtracted his fear of Viral's retaliation, then added in the facts that he'd have his own hoverboat and that Viral's robot could not fly. He wheeled around and puttered off toward the other hover boat as the red arremer levered bodies out the back.

The other boat was rightfully confused when he rolled up behind them. They hailed, but only "Hey what-" came over the radio before he spun up the gatling lasers, the message devolving into harsh screams as the boat tried to wheel around to face him and bring its guns to bear. It never even managed to get a shot off as the lasers concentrated fire punched through the armor, cutting the boat to ribbons in moments and sending it plummeting the the ground where it was engulfed in a great explosion that shook the air. He looked over to Firebrand expectantly, and the demon grinned and him and took his fingers from his throat. "Good form human." He said, walking away. "Now off with you before your boss realizes what you've done."

With that the demons dropped out of the back and watched as the boat was thrown into high gear and flew away from the combat zone as quickly as possible. It was a satisfying sight, and without it around people might take the chance to slip away without fear of being hunted down from the air. 

His satisfaction was short lived shots began to sound from below and began to soar up past him and his cohort. Troops on the ground had come out to survey the scene and take some revenge. He jerked his head upwards and the two ascended outside the range of their weaponry, then kept going for good measure.

"What about the robot, commander?" the red arremer asked, pointing off away from the city where Viral was occupied. He had a point. What he had just done was only a good start, but so long as that thing existed Viral was the next best thing to unstoppable in the eyes of the men he'd dominated. If it could be brought down then that would shake their faith to the core. It would perhaps even be a killing blow. The problem was that so long as it lived it was a rallying point, and as much experience as Firebrand had stripping men of their armor the machine could well be beyond his capabilities.

"We wait." He said, beating his wings to bring him high into the air before setting off toward the giant machine, his demon following loyally behind him. Fro up here he could see the entire battlefield, see the devastation wrought by the machines weaponry, and watched the line he had decimated reform and begin a heroic charge. He almost wanted to laugh. He pointed down at them. "And we depend on those brave fools to present us with an opportunity."