Prologue
I took the time to sit down and record all the details of the infamous "Round Table" from various pilots, SAR teams, and AWACs members. The Round Table, also known as airspace B7R, was a constant hot zone throughout the Belkan War. Pilots from every nation crisscrossed that sky, and if pilots from conflicting nations crossed paths in the airspace, only one of them was going to get out of there with their plane intact. The ones who lost, well, they would be walking home.
Apparently, there is a famous pilot of the Round Table that pilots refer to as the "Demon Lord". He's calm, cool, and collected in battle and shows mercy towards his enemies, allowing those who surrender to escape his bite. Hundreds of pilots flew with and against the Demon Lord, but only one man remains that is his wingman. He took me on a journey through his time spent with the Demon Lord, all the way from the beginning. But, he wasn't the only one to come into contact with him. I also spoke with several other pilots who engaged in dogfights with the Demon Lord. They had interesting stories about engagements in B7R as well.
B7R, the Round Table. Many knights were slain in the attempt to conquer it, but only one owns that sky. These are the stories of those who fought for and against the one they call The Demon Lord.
Master Sergeant Gregorev Scylla / Belkan 57th Search and Rescue Team Rapier /
B7R… I hated that place. As a SAR team leader, my team was constantly on standby just outside of the airspace there. The nations of Strangereal struck up a treaty that any pilots that were shot down in the B7R airspace could be recovered by his or her own country within 12 hours after the shoot down. Aircraft were also not allowed to engage SAR choppers either, and SAR teams could not engage other SAR teams within that 12 hour window. I can't tell you how many Osean and Ustian SAR teams I met while looking for our stranded pilots… B7R was a mess. After about a year in the war, we started bringing in clean-up crews to clear out aircraft wreckages, that's how bad it got.
I'm not gonna say I hated working so close to the enemy that I could practically shake hands with them. That's false. We SAR guys didn't care much about the fighting. We only cared about getting our people out of the fire and back home in one piece. Hell, the Allies even helped us Belkans look for our people and we helped them look for theirs.
We all agreed on one thing… That the Demon Lord was the cause for our constant need to sortie. Indigo, Rot, Grun, Schnee, Silber, and Schwartz were all shot down by the Demon Lord. Not to mention those guys from A World With No Boundaries… Nobody stood a chance against him. During the war, we specified aces by three categories. The most common from Ustio were the mercs. They'd shoot down any and everything that they came across and never let anyone escape. The next were the soldiers. The soldiers were known to only pursue when it was necessary. They could read the tide of battle and change it on its head in an instant. The last are the knights. The Demon Lord was this kind of ace. He showed mercy to his enemies as if to strike a deeper fear into them. But, the Demon Lord didn't start out as a knight, at least not during Operation Choker One…