So far the entire battle had been a joke for him: a pathetic showing, his opponents did little more than clown about in a vain attempt to lay a single graze upon his flesh. Mirac, that poor excuse for a blade, had to call upon Chaos' Oil-dripping inferiority to finagle the scarcest chance of landing a blow against the flying fiend. He knew it from the clench of an invisible giant's hand upon wings which had forced his flight to dip and miss his mark. As soon as the sensation hit, Ace snarled and spat at the cheat, no skill evident in the use of such tricks.

"What's wrong, Wrecky? Can't live up to the hype? I thought this was a battle of the worthy, not a pro against a yappy hunk of metal chump!"

Pulling up from his dive to the sound of the sword's own boastful claims, he peered down to catch the attack that might follow. Upon witnessing the rise of a wavering tentacle only for it to collapse into a dark spill on the sand, laughter boomed. This, he mused with tears pricking at eyes, was what the self-proclaimed bringer of death and destruction had to offer? The Praetors might be better foes if all he could provide was side-splitting failure to harm.

Then a armor-clad golden-brown meteor of feathers blasted by to crater into the beach below. The comedic cymbal clash after Mirac's anticlimatic drumroll of danger, it finally was too much for Ace to handle. He paused his ascent at the uproarious situation, a shred of willpower what kept him from plummeting to earth himself to crash as a quaking, guffawing mass of Drone.

"Hey, I get it now! You're a distraction!" he crowed. "Good one! True blade, my pretty pale ass!"

Before he could decide next whether the fight was worth more than a single hit extra to end it, a shock hit the entire Hive. A mind had been extinguished in a blaze of anguish. As if it'd been his own throat thrust through, he jerked in place, a gasp gusting through fangs. The space in the network once filled by Bone lay empty when he probed at the other flyer.

The first casualty of theirs that had a name attached, one of his comrades though clearly lower ranking than him when it came to aerial support, the absence agitated. Mother, his dear Mother stoked that small distress into a crackling bonfire. He'd been dallying for too long with weak opponents, should have been targeting the true threats. The price had been paid by another's life.

He snorted, shook his head. "Oh, you got me good there. But I've got better things to do than play war with some stick. Can't believe I fell for that shit."

Three priority targets. Choices to make. Or he could decide at random. Whichever, the enemy would have lost a valued member of their operation, more than enough to make up for Bone biting dust.

About to resume his climb upward to gain a better vantage point of those designated as dead meat, the charge of a non-Ordered dragon from beneath took him off guard. The torrent of sparks and heat expelled from Dread's maw almost scorched his underbelly and drew out an indignant squawk unbidden when it threatened to burn away at neck and face alike. Throwing himself to the side managed to save his good looks, but nevertheless the fact it'd nearly happened left him a spluttering, undignified mess.

"Everyone wants a piece of me, is that it! Well, tough luck. This guy isn't anyone's toasty lunch. You hear that! Nobody!"

Like an answer to his challenge, the lights began to die at that very moment.