"B7R" 022°53'37"N 234°19'32"E, 1200hrs, 28 May 1995

"Incoming message from Allied Forces HQ. Forty percent of Allied air forces are already lost."

The radio message ringed through the radio as two fighter jets flew over what was a rocky and empty desert. Both of them had been proudly wearing the roundel of the air force of the Republic of Ustio, a small country fighting as well as it could for its survival against its belligerent neighbor the fascist Principality of Belka.

Below them, there was nothing. Not a building, not a man, not even a single plant, but just rocks as far as the eye can see. It was from this kind of places that the legends of the greatest aces originate, the only factor deciding the results of a battle being the pilots and their planes.

"Dammit, there's too many of them! We can't handle them all!"

Up ahead, both pilots started to see in the distance the smoke trails of missiles, creating links between many dots that were moving at high speed in the sky. They both started to increase the throttle of their engines, and the two planes quickly gained speed, coming closer and closer to the furball.

"Where are the reinforcements?"

The fight was taking place close to the ground, the many fighters trying to use the landscape to their advantage. To reduce their altitude, the two pilots rolled their planes on their back before pulling their handle and their machines obeyed, performing an elegant maneuver that finally put them in combat position.

"Time to dive into the fireworks."

It was at this moment that the adrenalin kicked in. No one could tell how long they had been fighting anymore, their brains completely focused on every single details, their eyes looking at all their instruments and their ears filled by the music of machine gun fire, radar locks and explosions.

Nobody could tell how long did the battle lasted, but the time did not matter. What did, however, was who those still in the air in the end were.

"All targets within combat airspace are down. Operation complete." simply said the radio operator of the AWACS that had watched over the entire skirmish.

Out of all the survivors, the leader of the two plane squadron that arrived as reinforcement was in the center of the attention. All the other Allied Forces pilots were in awe, just like they had seen an unnatural being.

A Demon Lord.

His wingman left out a small whistle, like to express his relief after the end of the engagement. He was closely following his superior, looking at the smoking frames down below. And in a way, his whistle also expressed his impressment.

"Yo, Buddy. You sti…" he tried to say, but a really bright light suddenly jumped in his eyes, blinding him.

By reflex, he violently pulled on his control stick and the plane brutally changed trajectory. After all, he had already survived dangerous blinding rays before.

When his vision returned to normal, he started to look around franticly, trying to understand what just happened. But there was nothing.

"Galm Two, do you copy? I repeat. Galm Two, do you copy? Pixy, can you hear me?" asked the AWACS, his voice slowly reappearing just like when an enemy jamming fades away.

"Read you loud and clear, Eagle Eye," he answered as he continued to look around. "What the hell was that?"

"We do not know. But it interfered with our radars and we have lost contact with Galm One. Can you confirm his status?"

It was just at this moment that Pixy really realized that there was truly nothing in his sights.

Not even the plane of his flight lead.

"Negative, Eagle Eye. I can't see him and he's not on my radar."

Immediately, he reduced his altitude, looking for a wreckage of his buddy's plane. But what he found instead was completely different.

Your Imperial Highness, It is my highest honor to announce that the glorious legions under my orders have successfully crossed the Holy Gate.

I cannot tell how long we have walked in the black limbo that separates the worlds, but it does not matter as all of my troops arrived without harm on the lands that will quickly join our glorious Empire.

We have arrived in a large and empty rocky desert, away from any kind of city or settlement. This allowed the Army to set up the first tents of a camp.

Yet, we do not feel very safe. Ever since we arrived on this desolated land, large metallic beasts have been flying high in the perfectly clear sky. At first, they were just dots on the blue background, but when one drew closer and flew directly over our head, we could see its bird like shape, but most importantly, we could hear its loud, growling scream. It quickly flew away, spitting flames from its rear and causing some of my men to panic.

Shortly after, the first scouts returned, bringing back with them a human prisoner. They had found him near what looked like the burning remains of one of those creatures and managed to capture him easily.

This man is, as I just wrote, human. Yet, he is different than anything I have ever seen. The only clothe he is wearing is a brown tunic that covers all the parts of his body except the head. Sadly, and as expected, he refuses to answer to any of our question, and the only words he says are in a barbaric language that no one can understand.

Another group of scouts also encountered a similar dressed man in the middle of the rocks, but was unsuccessful in capturing him. Apparently, this man defended himself using a form of magic that produce loud sounds and created several impacts on the stone and managed to escape.

We have yet to find any town or village, and we will have to rely on food and resources coming from across the Gate until we do.

Your Grace, you can be ensured that this expedition will be a success.

Written by Faram Em Lanti, General of the First Legions, on the fourth day of the month of Raik of the Imperial Year six hundred and eighty seven.

Cipher slowly opened his eyes, his mind still half asleep. In his ears, there was the soft voice of a woman, and at first he could not understand. But the words started to get clearer as his vision started to lose its blurriness.

"Warning. Low fuel. Warning. Low fuel. Warning. Low fuel."

When his brain finally processed the words, Cipher immediately shook his head to wake himself up.

He was sitting in the cockpit of his F-15 as it was flying in a perfectly blue sky. Down below were green fields and large forests. The first thing that came through his mind was that he somehow fell asleep while going back to Valais Air Base after the end of his mission.

But was his mission already?

Oh yes, the large scale dogfight over the desert of Area B7R, The Round Table.

The thing is, the only things that separate Valais from the Round Table are mountains and dry plains. When he realized that there was no way he was on a normal trajectory, he hurried his look towards the instruments.

But nothing.

Either they were not working, or the information they were displaying was completely unbelievable.

At first, he could not believe it. Nothing could explain such a bizarre situation, not even the most powerful ECMs Belka could deploy. So in the end, he could only do one thing.

Try to contact someone and hope for the best.

"This is Ustio Air Force fighter jet Galm One," he started on all the radio frequencies used in aviation, "identification number Uniform Alpha Foxtrot Victor Lima Zero Three Two. Mayday. Mayday. I have a huge instrument malfunction and I do not know where I am."

No response.

He launched another call for help.

Still no response.

His heart started to beat faster.

"This is Galm One. Does anyone hear me?" he launched one final time, this time with a small bit of despair in his voice.

But even after a few minutes, there was nobody to answer him.

"Dammit!" he spat out, this time with anger.

But screaming inside his oxygen mask was not going to accomplish anything. He had to calm down. He closed his eyes, breathed in and breathed out before going over all the details again, but this time calmly.

Altitude? Numbers on his head-up display are changing almost at random, but at least two thousand feet from looking at the ground.

Radar? Nothing.

GPS? Lost contact.

Weapons? One Fox 2 under the left wing and at least one hundred rounds in the gun.

Fuel? The low fuel dial is lit, but no way to know the true quantity. Safer to assume that there is nothing left in the tank.

Now everything was clear. The best thing to do in a situation like this is to land somewhere safe, ideally a small aerodrome or an empty segment of a wide road. But as he reduced the gas and reduced the altitude of his plane, another detail suddenly appeared in front of his eyes.

Below him were only large fields and forests, and the only that could be described as road were simple dirt paths that were drawing borders between the large pieces of land.

"What the…" he whispered to himself as he started to look all around him again, this time trying to find buildings.

But his eyes only came across lone houses in the middle of the fields that were obviously farms, yet there were no tractors or any kind of farming vehicle. In fact the only vehicle he could see down there were what looked like animal-pulled carts.

"This is bad… This is very bad…"

Thing is, despite all of that, he still had to land as soon as possible. And he was absolutely not sure where to do it. The only flat parts were covered by trees and cultures while the clear areas were bumpy. The only option that seemed appropriate was a larger trail that was leading away from a small village lost in that enormous sea of green.

"This is Galm One. I'm attempting an emergency landing." he said through the microphone of his radio even if he perfectly knew that nobody was listening.

He continued slowing down and reducing his speed as he made a large wide turn to align with the improvised landing strip.

With a movement he had already done a thousand time, he pulled several switches. Outside the plane, the flaps moved to their landing position and the three wheeled legs of the landing gear started to deploy out of their sheets.

Now, the Eagle was flying directly straight. Between it and the start of the straight section of trail, there was deep green blob of a forest, probably the biggest forest of the area. If he wanted to have the longest runway possible, he had to fly really close to the tree.

He knew it was a dangerous manoeuver, but he had to do it. It was a desperate time, and it needed desperate measures.

But as he drew closer and closer, a strange feeling started to appear. It was the feeling of being watched, of being at the center of the attention of everyone in a radius of several miles. And for someone like Cipher that never liked to be noticed, it was not a pleasant feeling.

His hand started to grip the control stick harder. The most important moment had arrived, and he only had one try. The exhaust gases made the leafs move when the back end of the plane almost got brushed by the top of the trees. From this point on, it seemed like everything was happening in slow motion.

The two back landing gears touched the ground, the wheels started to roll on the dirt, the nose slowly moved down and the front wheel touched the ground.

For a split-second, the feeling that ran through the pilot's mind was joy. He had made it.

But it brutally disappeared as the left back wheel violently jumped, just like if it had encountered a rock or any similar obstacle. This sudden movement completely ruined the Eagle's balance as the flat surface of the wings started to form a large slope. It might have been a relatively slow movement, giving him just enough time to react, but it was not stopping.

By reflex, he let go of the stick and joined his hands on the black and yellow handle sitting between his legs and pulled. Instantaneously, the glass canopy was blown away and the ejection seat accelerated upwards, throwing an enormous amount of Gs at Cipher.

After that, the only things he remember are the branches hitting his face as his parachute crash landed in a small group of trees, the feeling of being hanged by his parachute, the pain as he roughly hit the ground after cutting his harness, and a small figure closing in as he passed out.

I had the idea of a Gate x Ace Combat crossover for a little while now. Those that have read my other story, Gate: Opération Marteau de Justice, know that I am a big Ace Combat fan, and after playing through both Shattered Skies and The Unsung War, the idea of a story revolving around the Gate opening somewhere in Strangereal made its way into my mind. I finally settled with the portal opening in the middle of Area B7R during Operation Battle-Axe, a.k.a Mission 10 of Ace Combat Zero, and the scenario of a pilot getting lost on the other side. I chose to send Cipher on the other side because, as the silent protagonist, it alows me to have greater liberties on the way I write.

I do not know when I will write the next chapter, but I'll try to find a little of time to do so.

But anyway, I hope you enjoyed.