3:12 AM
Southern coast of Mainland Hoenn
20,000 Feet above sea level
"News just in from command. The Final go-ahead has been cleared through the old men. We will destroy the Hoennic fleet."
"Strike the beast while it sleeps. This'll be like hunting an Eevee."
Indeed it would. The poor bastards in intelligence had worked hard for info this accurate. This was the one moment where the enemy's Achilles' heel was exposed. Not a single radar in Hoenn would pick up the six Johtoan TU-22 'Backfire' strategic bombers heading at mach 1 towards Mauville Naval Yards, where their unsuspecting victim lay in slumber.
"Lugia flight, this is HQ. Arm you missiles and launch in T-minus one minute."
"Solid copy," One pilot responded. "Say Jake, bet your girl's waitin' back home for you."
The pilot responded wearily. "Yeah. I promised I'd only be gone three days, but looking at the time... could be four."
"Probably. Sure would help if the damn HQ wasn't staffed by Snorlaxes-"
"Can it, you." The controller snapped, less than happy about the joke at his expense. "T-minus Thirty."
"Understood. Lugia Flight, confirm missiles armed."
In near perfect synch, all of the aircraft responded positive.
"Fire On my mark." HQ responded. "3, 2, 1... Fire!"
All in chorus, six huge KH-22 missiles, what the Unovans called the "Kitchen", fell from the bodies of the aircraft. Then, the Solid Rocket Motors kicked in. The cockpits of all the aircraft were lit up in orange as the missiles careened past the bombers which had brought them out on their last mission. The orange lights went up into the stars, and in seconds had disappeared. There was complete silence for a few seconds, before the flight leader spoke up. "Gentlemen. This is the beginning of a war. We will get revenge on Hoenn and their puppets. Fill your heart with hatred, and fire again."
Immediately, another twelve missiles were released, and followed their brethren, likely now on the edge of space. The Hoennic Military's oppression of Johto and its people for decades was about to end, starting with putting their oh-so precious fleet to the bottom of their own home port.
This was it. The 7th Tactical Bomber Wing "Lugia" had just made history. Their time in the spotlight, from the first missile to the last being fired, had lasted just fifteen seconds.
A quarter of a minute.
Enough to change the world.
And with that, the squadron that wrote history became just another six planes in an arsenal of hundreds.
"We're done here," HQ finally spoke up. "RTB."
The co-pilot of the fourth aircraft also spoke, with a voice of utter world-weariness. "I feel sick."
No more than four minutes later
75 miles north, Mauville Navy Yards
Home Port of the Hoennic 2nd Fleet
Nobody even saw the missiles coming. A perfect storm of radar maintenance, bad weather and a rolling blackout had left the nation blind.
As if, the planets had aligned, then fallen on them one after the other.
Of course, there was in fact something falling on them. 18 Anti-ship Missiles going mach 6.
However, one radar in Hoenn was working. The Warning reciever of the HNS Dauntless, an ageing frigate whose AEGIS installation had been completed just half an hour ago.
Aboard the bridge, the missiles were picked up twenty seconds before impact. Though just seconds, it was more than enough for the AEGIS weapon system to program and fire a salvo of four missiles. They darted towards their aggressors at a breakneck pace, bloodthirstily hunting for the huge radar signatures of the enemy missiles. One missile found its target with such precision that they actually connected. Both warheads detonated, vaporising each other. Two of the SAMs missed, and a fourth came within a few metres of the enemy ASM, close enough that it automatically detonated. The shrapnel annihilated the guidance computer of the missile, and it broke formation, rocketing towards the city centre, the giant indoor complex Mauville city was famous for.
No doubt a valiant effort, yet there were still sixteen missiles and one out-of-control firework heading for the city and the fleet. With just 5 miles to go, the rocket motors ran out of fuel, and went silent. It seemed that there was no hope for the Fleet.
But they wouldn't go down without a fight.
"Get that bitch hot! Light em' up!" The captain of the only other combat-ready ship, the new Guided Missile Destroyer HNS Margolis. Ironically, its position in the west of the port rendered its Guided Missiles unable to hit any of the missiles. They did however, have one final defence: the Phalanx CIWS system.
The sky was lit up in an instant by thousands of red Tracer rounds. A barrage of 30mm-wide rounds jumped at the incoming missiles, with only seconds to stop them. Two missiles were shredded by the first wave of fire, and one more by the next.
But before the third wave could destroy any more missiles, the impacts began.
The Margolis went silent for just a second, a second which seemed to last forever.
Then that silence was ended in an instant.
The ship was enveloped in fire and smoke. Every window in the bridge shattered as the destroyer lurched to its starboard side. The fire subsided, and the bridge was filled with water. Mercifully, the crew were spared a long death by drowning, and painlessly killed by the exploding Ammunition within the bowels of the ship. The charred remains of the just-launched warship split in half, and sank within seconds, leaving small sections of the bow and stern exposed above the water, now covered by a huge slick of burning oil. One more explosion shook the area, as a Missile fired out of one of the ship's Vertical Launch System cells. It hit a large crane, which buckled from the impact, and collapsed over the corpse of the Margolis.
A mile away, on the other end of the Port, A giant lay sleeping. The Supercarrier HNS Drake, 1,000 feet long and utterly defenceless. Two school bus-long missiles struck the beast, one directly into the island of the ship, pulverising it. The second found its way through the elevator shaft, and into the main hangar. The detonation blasted a hole in both the deck above and the hull below. Several huge explosions followed that of the missile, as both F-35C Lightning IIs and their ammo went up in smoke.
In between the two first sites of impact, seven more ships erupted into a lightshow of fire, smoke and shrapnel: Two more Marigold-class destroyers, The submarine Beowulf-Tau, three corvettes, and a near-miss on the cruiser HNS Geofon.
The remaining four missiles each suffered a different fate, with the only similarity being an explosion at the end. One careened into the bay, sending a splash of water a hundred feet into the air. A second locked onto the nearest object; A huge Gantry Crane. As one side of it was destroyed, it toppled over, crushing dozens of stacked containers that it straddled. The third, whose guidance systems had been fried by a Hoennic missile just seconds before, span off, straight into Mauville city. The south side of the Huge indoor complex that made up Mauville's Downtown was struck by a Mach 6 Lawn Dart with high explosives at one end. The weapon failed to detonate on impact, instead tunneling through a "block" of connected apartments before failing to properly explode, instead catching alight.
The fourth came down in Mauville Oil refinery, one of the largest in the country. The point of impact was a large pipe between two storage tanks. the explosion blew apart the pipeline, and a fire quickly began to spread as oil leaked over the concrete. As the flames caught up and got more and more intense, they caused the oil that remained in the pipes to catch fire too. A chain reaction caused both gigantic tanks to explode simutaneously, in what at the time was the largest non-nuclear explosion in Hoennic history. All of the nearby buildings were flattened. Collateral damage was clesrly no concern to the Johtoans.
A deafening silence was brought to the bay. It lasted for just a few seconds, but it may as well have been a few years. The silence came to an end as the sounds of the devastation raised into an awful crescendo. First sirens, then screaming, then even more secondary explosions. Destruction covered the proud city, bathing it in a bright orange light.
1:17 AM Johtoan Central Time
Johtoan High Command Headquarters
(JOCENTCOM)
Undisclosed location, near Goldenrod City
"This is Lugia 6. We started a war for you. I hope you're happy."
The Johtoan General was happy indeed. "Don't talk like that, comrade. You'll be national heroes, the brave men who broke our chains of oppres-"
"We hit civilian targets! All of us will be lucky not to get shot, even you!", the young pilot angrily responded.
"That's enough, captain. Be quiet." The general growled, annoyed at the soldier's concern. All of them would be paraded around the nation, a perfect distraction from the clusterfuck at home. How sweet, he thought.
One of the grunts sitting at their computers turned around to face the general. "Sir. Confirmed strike on the fleet. Should we go for phase 2?"
"Yes. Let's wrap this up and all go home."
The vice commander of the Johtoan Pre-emptive strike command (PESCOM) looked at him in distaste. "Is that all this means to you? We're avenging our fallen! We're defeating those dogs who have attacked our values!"
The old general sighed. "Y'know kid, You're a prime example of a good soldier. I bet if the president told you to jump of a cliff in the name of the country, you'd be off the edge before he stopped talking."
The Vice commander scowled, and moved closer, so nobody else could hear what he said. "Do you have a death wish?" He whispered into his ear. "I'm surprised you've survived this long talking like that."
The conversation was cut by a live video feed on the large screen at the end of the command centre. It showed a zoomed-in view of a huge battleship, cutting through choppy waters in the dead of the night. A few seconds later, a message appeared along the top of the screen. It read:
INCOMING CALL: CG-43 JNS MAKINAMI
"This is the Makinami, reporting. How copy?" A gruff male voice asked.
"Loud and clear Captain, you are go for phase 2. Give 'em hell." The Vice Commander replied.
"Understood," The Captain replied, and moved away from the microphone, to another one in the bridge. "All hands, General Quarters! We are go for launch!"
The Video feed briefly cut out, going to a black screen. When it returned, a volley of cruise missiles had escaped the VLS and pounced at the black sky. With each missile, the ship was bathed in an orange glow. Until then, a herd of Lapras had been shadowing the cruiser. The noise of the launches had sent them running for cover.
Inside the command centre, a private manning a computer terminal span around on his chair to face the two men on the balcony above him. "Sir. Missile impact ETA is T-minus 76 minutes."
"Good," The General replied. "Our work is done. Time to clear out everyone."
Everyone began to pack away the equipment. Indeed, their work was done. They had started the war, yet the odds of them being remembered were slim. Maybe in 10 years they'd run a documentary about the lost heroes of the war, or something.
'Who fucking cares,' the General thought. 'I just want to sleep right now.'
So that's the first chapter. We've seen a bit about Johto and their motivations, and their military strength.
For now, that's all. I'll see you all next time, I suppose.