Dark, evil clouds hovered above the arid graveyard. The land was rough and uneven, littered with shrub and cracked soil while all around, the metal graves of many pilots who had fallen victim to the clashes of aces in the skies above. Many bore the faded yellow triangle of the Belkan Air Force, kills claimed by the legendary Galm Team in the great war that had consumed many of the states on the Osean continent. Many of the rusted carcasses remained where they lay, some had been cut into to retrieve bodies of the men and women who had flown them into battle and fallen. It was a place heavy with death.

A rumble echoed across the plains. Someone dared to shatter the silence that had gripped the Round Table in it's talons. The intruder began as a speck in the distance, rapidly drawing closer to the mountain border until the outline of the aircraft was clear to the spirits aimlessly wandering the ground.

A lone McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagle. A fighter with blue wings.


Only the sound of the aircraft's heart could be heard in the cockpit, coupled with the rhythmic breathing of the pilot. Eligos Sanderson gazed nonchalant across plains of sand and metal, observing the destruction that was mostly his doing. The victims had all cried names for him varying from Demon Lord, Knight of the Round Table and Mercenary but all had perished under his guns and missiles.

No longer a part of the Ustio Air Force, and not an official member of any military, Eligos was a wanderer. He roamed the skies, his skies, but not in search of enemies. Not in search of peace. He flew because it was home. His home. The Round Table was home to many rumours and stories of the lone fighter that patrolled the area. The Demon Lord had acquired more nicknames in the years after the war, one being the Ghost of the Round Table. That one he had heard plenty of times in bars and pubs by pilots and veterans of the Belkan War.

His radar beeped. It was a sound that Eligos rarely heard in the area, and his bright yellow eyes snapping down to the screen. In his head, he could already hear AWACS Eagle Eye announcing the contact and directing the two-man Galm Team to intercept. "Bandit inbound at vector zero one zero angels ten at five hundred knots." He muttered to himself. "IFF unresponsive. Cipher, engage."

He did as he told himself, swinging the nose of the F-15C Eagle round to face his challenger. For all he knew, it could be a lost aircraft but he doubted it. Lost aircraft don't make beelines for others at high speed.

The gap closed rapidly and as it did,a bad feeling rose in Eligos' bones. His hand moved from the control column to the master arm switch, the fighter was perfectly trimmed to fly straight and level. With his weapons live, he clipped his oxygen mask to the helmet and closed his polarized visor. The other aircraft was almost in AMRAAM range, and Eligos carried four such weapons.

His missile warning system wailed and confirmed Eligos' suspicions. His Eagle flipped effortlessly and dived, flares left where the aircraft had once been. The Demon Lord rolled and loaded the g-forces onto his aircraft as the missiles passed over his head, two smoke trails marking their path.

"Enemy aircraft confirmed hostile." Eligos murmured as he played the role of his own AWACS. His nose was once more pointed at the horizon where the enemy aircraft was and opened the throttle. The Eagle roared in defiance at the one who dared to challenge it, daring it to come closer. "Bandit in missile range. Lock...fox three."

A single Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile dropped from the fuselage of Eligos' aircraft. The rocket engine ignited and the weapon shot off like a hound after a fox. He could see the curved path the missile took as it guided itself to the target. His frown turned into a scowl as the weapon failed to detonate. The distance had closed, it was now a duel of short range missiles and, if a victor failed to emerge then, to guns.

A fast-growing speck in the distance came to sight, the bandit that Eligos chased. It was a dangerous game of chicken, neither pilot wanted to engage with short range missiles in case they wasted a shot that could be a game changer later in the engagement. From experience, Eligos knew such head on attacks were useful against less capable pilots but he knew this was more than your average pilot. Average pilots didn't venture into the Round Table alone and engage a single adversary.

He rolled his F-15 onto the starboard wingtip just as the enemy fighter rolled onto theirs. They would pass with just meters between their vertical stabilisers, close enough to see the whites of the other pilot's eyes. But what he saw instead made his heart stop in his chest.

Another Eagle. An Eagle with a red wing.

The image was gone as quickly as it had come, the fighter disappearing into his six o'clock. Eligos had but moments to react, knowing that even a second's hesitation could result in his death. He once more tensed his thighs and braced his body before pulling back on the control column and swinging his aircraft around in a high speed, high g turn. He tilted his head back and looked up, looking through the contrails made by his wingtips and seeing that the red-winged fighter had rolled level and pulled up vertical above him.

Then a voice came over his headset, a voice that sent an icy shiver down his spine.

"Yo buddy, you still alive?"

It couldn't be? Eligos had seen the experimental jet explode over Avalon Dam years ago. Eligos undershot his opponent, not able to change course nor slow down in time to slide in behind his opponent. Instead he too rolled wings level and sent his fighter vertical also, looking up out of the top of his cockpit to keep his eyes firmly planted on the single red wing that haunted him above.

"Those who survive a long time on the battlefield start to think they're invincible. I bet you do too, buddy." The enemy pilot seemed to be taunting him and Eligos felt a burning anger rise through him. Whoever this pilot was, be he an impersonator or Larry Foulke himself, he was intruding upon his skies. There would be little mercy for him today.

"This is the Round Table. Dead men's words hold no meaning." Eligos retorted as he wrestled his Eagle into position behind the enemy, both aircraft still panting and climbing at a near vertical attitude. His HUD flashed as the red-winged fighter drew into sidewinder range and his radar worked to lock onto the target.

Eligos' angered response only made his opponent chuckle, the sound unmistakeable through the headset. "You fired up? Come shoot me down!" The enemy Eagle suddenly stopped climbing and gracefully fell backwards, head over heels like an olympic diver. In seconds, the aircraft was once more coming straight for Eligos. Neither man had time to fire weapons as they once more passed inches from each other.

There was no doubt in Eligos' mind. This man was undeniably Larry Foulke, the famous mercenary turned traitorous terrorist. With a snarl, the Demon Lord followed suit and flipped his fighter over to give chase. Foulke seemed to be recklessly diving for the ground, and Eligos switched to guns. The gunsight flashed on his HUD, and Eligos squeezed his index finger against the trigger.

The gun came to life with a loud bwrrrt, spraying hot orange projectiles downrange at six thousand rounds a minute. Foulke appeared to second guess his action, kicking his Eagle into a wide, diving barrel roll around the stream of deadly twenty millimeter rounds. The ugly orange ground rushed up to meet them. There were mere seconds before it was too late to pull up, but neither aircraft wanted to move first.

Eventually, Solo Wing pulled out of the dive and Eligos followed. They were both but feet above the dusty surface, their engines kicking up a great cloud behind them as they raced after each other. The ground was a blur as Eligos shifted his fighter so he wasn't directly in the jetwash of his former wingman. Even as he kept his eye on Foulke, he barely saw the carcass of the dead fighter jet before he was forced to swerve to dodge it. The dodge brought him into the collision course of a second, and again with tiny flicks of the control stick, he was able to just avoid crashing into it. A glance at Foulke was enough to confirm that he too faced the same problem. Almost in unison, both aircraft rose to just above treetop level.

"You and I are opposite sides of the same coin." Foulke's voice was cool, collected, almost as if he was enjoying the engagement. The very sound of him speaking was enough to give Eligos goosebumps. "When we face each other, we can finally see our true selves. There may be a resemblance, but we never face the same direction."

It was too low for a missile shot,there was too much confusion for effective tracking and the dust cloud kicked up in Foulke's jetwash prevented Eligos from lining up for a gun kill. He was forced to fly in this enemy's five o'clock position, glaring with yellow eyes as if willing Hell itself to rise up and swallow his prey whole. He noted their flight path, and saw the mountains rising up ahead of them. Nature's skyscrapers, Eligos had run many a Belkan down in the canyons and valleys created by the towering rock sculptures. Foulke was aiming for such a canyon, and both Eagles began to rise and fall with the flow of the land.

"Did you know...there are three kind of aces?" Foulke asked, although his question didn't call for an answer. He spoke with a calm as if death wasn't feet away, racing at mach one below them as they drew ever closer. "Those who seek strength, those who live for pride, and those who can read the tide of battle."

The valley walls suddenly engulfed them, blurred greys and browns hemmed the two aircraft in as they continued their chase. Eligos licked his lips where his quick and shallow breathing had turned them cold and dry. The canyon seemed to stretch on forever, the orange and brown beginning to merge into grey and white. Then without warning, the canyon spat them out into a vast white bowl, silver mountains lining the edge and a vast white desert consuming all other colour below them. The dark clouds remained above, adding to the vast expanse of frozen wasteland below in slow white trickles.

"Here comes the snow. It was a cold and snowy day..." Ahead of him, Foulke suddenly pulled into a long, sweeping bank and climbed as he did so. Sensing the moment, Eligos followed the graceful parabolic curve and pulled harder on the flight controls to bring his nose to fully bear upon Foulke. He had dropped behind enough for his AIM-9 sidewinders to growl in anticipation.

Lock! Eligos swiftly loosened a pair of the short ranged heat seeking missiles that registered the twin exhausts of Foulke's jet as the hottest points in the sky and lurched towards them. But in his mind, Eligos knew Foulke was better than to be shot down so easily and his suspicions were proven as the red winged fighter dumped bright hot flares into the sky and twisted away like a snake.

"It's pretty ironic, buddy. Two dogs like us fighting the last battle." Foulke laughed at that, Eligos noted that his adversary had no strain in his voice despite the g forces he pulled. As he followed Solo Wing's manoeuvre, he was able to catch a glimpse of their new battlefield. Mountains stretched as far as the eye could see, a maze of silver and white valleys criss crossing into the distance. Not too far away, an obvious man made structure broke the natural beauty but Eligos knew instantly what it was. They were flying over Valais Airbase.

"So have you found a reason to fight yet...buddy?" The question seemed to ring in Eligos's mind, louder and louder like a bell. The words began to shift, taking new form as the Demon Lord struggled to maintain his posture and keep following Foulke through his calm twisting and turning while tunnel vision threatened to snatch him from consciousness. More sounds began to invade his head as the pressure increased, faint cheering as the bell rang louder. Cries of victory, then one voice could be heard above the rest.

"Ring the freedom bell louder! Make it heard throughout the city!"

The bells merged together into a long, droning beep. Instinctively, Eligos squeezed the trigger on his control stick and his final pair of AIM-9 sidewinders were cut loose and chased their prey. Time seemed to slow, the drone got louder and the missiles got closer and closer to Foulke's jet until they exploded in a bright orange flash.

The noise and pressure fell away as if a heavy blanket had been dragged off. He opened his eyes fully, and released the breath he didn't know he was holding. One by one, his senses returned to him, and his surroundings faded back into view. Grey clouds above a vast dusty wasteland. There was no snow, no ice and no whiteness. The only sounds in the cockpit where Eligos' laboured breathing and the low rumbling of the engines behind him. There was no smoke where Foulke's jet had been, no flaming wreck and no tumbling shards of metal. His radar was clean, and more importantly, his weapon hardpoints were full.

As the scene unfolded, and his mind cleared from the cloud of questions that he asked himself, a single voice came over the airway. It was cool, calm and had a trace of a Belkan accent. There was only one owner of the voice, and the Demon Lord instantly knew who it was. But even as he confirmed the skies were clear and he was alone, the voice spoke to him one last time.

"This is where we go our separate ways."