Harpoon

The massive leviathan breached the water, sending off waves of frigid water in every direction that would easily crush a great battleship before it would ever have a chance to be flipped. Its scales shone brightly in the moonlight - brighter even than the water that it was surfacing from. Its eyes burned red, attention turned on to the gryphon hovering in the air above it, staring down at the beast below it without fear. The gryphon was but a speck of dirt compared to the leviathan, but it was his rider that gave him his fearless gaze.

Angelo stood on the back of his gryphon, precariously perched on the creature's back without a saddle, a massive spear held firmly in his left hand. It was easily as long as he was tall, steel forged with flames burning so bright it tainted the edges blue. He glared down at the sea beast which had taken his family and home from him so many years ago. The creature had surfaced just off the edge of his village. They had thought they would be safe, living up on the plateau, but the waves had risen higher than anyone thought possible. The leviathan had only deigned fit to apathetically washed as they were all washed away.

But Angelo had been out, learning to fly with his gryphon that day. Even from so many miles away, the two had heard the heart wrenching sound of the crashing waves. By the time they arrived, they had only time to watch as the leviathan sank below the water, their home wiped away as if it had never been in the first place. Everything they had ever known and loved, vanished without a trace, and the cause leaving without so much as a fond farewell.

They had trained for years after that in order to take revenge. Trained to fly, trained to hunt, and trained to fight. Angelo had learned how to wield a spear with unadulterated accuracy, able to pierce a pheasant in the heart as it dove to the ground in free fall. His gryphon learned to catch those speared pheasants before they ever hit the ground, and how to fly with free mobility without unseating his unsaddled rider. They moved as a single unit, and only pulled apart from one another when absolutely necessary.

The leviathan roared up at them, as if acknowledging that they had become a threat to it. It showed them its teeth, sharp and jagged like the stones of the sea that tore so many ships asunder, and without hesitation, Angelo leaped from his friend's back.

He drove his way down threw the air, gripping his spear with both hands and watching as he approached the impossibly tough skin of his foe. He was falling from more than a mile before the creature's head, which was now rising up to meet him. A mere few moments behind him, his gryphon dove too, prepared to tear those scales free as Angelo pierced them and lifted them from the beast with his spear.

The impact was hard, rocking Angelo's powerful body and nearly crushing his bones. But his spear drove in harder, not only piercing the first scale, but completely shattering it. Less than a second later, his gryphon's talons were driving into the exposed flesh, pushing the spear deeper and penetrating the creature's muscles. It screamed out in rage, and then they were gone, once more pulled away into the air as Angelo steadied himself on his friend's back and flicked the blood from his weapon.

It would be a long battle. And they would relish its every moment.