There were five champion dragons, but only one victor. The flying ones, by nature, traditionally had the heaviest bidders. If someone could smartly engineer a set of wings, it was likely they could engineer the deadliest fire breathing mechanics. In other words, the highest win rate of the match.

There was one year an inventor decided to enter the competition with an ice dragon, but really it ended up having a nozzle that shot out a messy spittle of dry ice. Not really effective against a hot metal opponent. And another year that comes to mind was a wingless entry with six razor sharp claws. Perfect for spinning and tackling in melee.

But the fliers — oh — those were the real beauties.

Gorgeous bronze frames embedded in mechanical perfection, like songbirds in graceful hues. Gears and notches and underbellies full of wires, an electric marvel, airborne.

None entered were allowed to be larger than three feet across. But the flight mechanists knew to use lightweight alloys. Expensive, but if a winning dragon is crowned, its owner usually lands a lucrative contract with a company who wants their engineering skill. And with so many bidders on the line, they find themself richer to boot.

Why did these dragon fights have the entire city looking up at the sky today? It’s the 1890s. Why watch a street brawl when you could watch a machine fly?

Like sparrows they raced each other from one end of the horizon to the other. The mechanical whrrrr of wings whipping past the excited audience, racing to catch each other, were met with great whoops and hollars as each put on a deliberate show of diving unexpectedly into the crowd.

The row of engineers piloting their dragons sat in the front row, hats upon their heads, tongues peeking out in intense focus to pit one dragon against another. They stayed quite still. From the vantage point of my row the antennae of their controllers made them all look like little bugs. Though it was too far away to tell, their fingers had to have been moving a mile a minute.

If not for the little show the dragons were putting on for the crowd, their dragons might have already pulverized one another already. Smoke clouds dotted the blue sky, and some pairs of wings were starting to look more melted than others.

One wingless dragon built for melee rolled aimlessly around on the ground. It could do nothing to match the height of its opponents, and only screeched into the air. Its blue scales and slender build were stunning, I had to admit. It would be a shame to lose it to a dragon’s fire, for it would truly make an extraordinary centerpiece.

The real fight was between the two red and the gold champions.

Ajax The Red, a clear crowd favorite. Body made of titanium silver scales, tipped with dripping red paint like blood on a silver platter. Red spikes draped in a deathly cowl around its long neck, claws like knife points. He had a win rate of ten to two. His wingspan was the standardized 3 feet, but with his might, he looked twice the size of his opponents, and twice the meaner.

Versus the gold, titled Poor Leopold. Nicknamed such after a fateful match three years ago. His creator had fumbled with the controls, and sent him spiraling into the nearest trash heap. It was after that unfortunate accident that he rose to fame, by the laughter it brought audiences as the “phoenix of the waste bin.” Poor Leopold was no flimsy piece of junk, though. Even now, smoke cladden and singed, he burned mighty gold under the mid-day sun, a powerhouse unto himself.

“What’s the lad doing there, eh, sending Poor Leo straight into Ajax?” said a man to my left. Hat in his hands, wringing it around anxiously. He had bid much on Poor Leopold, and had boasted to me his earnings all but three rounds ago.

“Mincemeat for the beast, he is!” the woman to my right replied with an encouraging hoot. Ajax had been her top contender. She had told me her husband had put all this week’s earnings in the pot. “He thought it was for drinking money, the idiot! But I’d buy yours next, good sir, for listening.”

“No, madame, I bid you thanks.”

wip