Forewords
Time to up the challenge a bit for Reimu and co. Having just soldiers, tanks, helicopters and Gunships are just not enough for any sort of challenge.
So let me introduce to you...
...the Fighter Planes!
Chapter 25: Dogfight
Time: 1000 Hour; 11th of August, 2125.
Location: The Vladimir Lenin, Artic Ocean. Approximately 4 KM off the coast of northern Malkrantia.
"Romanov vertoleta tol'ko chto prislal nam peredachi..." [The Romanov Gunship has just sent us a transmission.]
"Chto oni govoryat?" [What are they saying?]
"Oni vse s pros'boy podderzhki s vozdukha ot istrebiteley." [They are requesting air support from the fighter planes.]
"Pokhozhe, prishlo vremya... Ochen' khorosho otprav'te v vozdukhe podderzhivayet." [Looks like the time has come... Very well, send in air supports.]
"Da, ser!" [Yes, sir!]
"Pust' eto budet pervaya voyna mezhdu moshchnoy magiyey i peredovykh tekhnologiy..." [Let this be the first war between powerful magic and advanced technologies...]
...
Location: Skylines of Tassoburg, Malkrantia.
"Malkrantia was the largest country in the world. Surprising that you girls got from the eastern half to the western half of the country so quick..." Yukari expressed surprise through Magic Codec.
"Yeah. It looked like this Malkrantia is prone to sending in ambushes. That's why we could travel very far before they come back to fight us." replied Reimu.
"And we get caught in their ambushes all the time because ambushing was never part of danmaku warfare, ze..." Marisa added in.
"Like that Gunship just now. They were willing to use anti-tank weapons against us, five girls." Sakuya said.
Youmu was going to sit out of the Codec conversation, but something made her join in to warn everybody else. "I heard something off the distance. Did you?"
Everyone went silent and listened to their surroundings. True enough, there seems to be noises of something approaching them.
"There!" Sanae shouted and pointed at one direction. "Those are..."
What she's pointing at appears to be planes with horizontally-placed turbines attached to the tip of their wings, with the tailblade sandwiched between another two turbine. Attached under both of their wings are what looked like Gatling Guns which have another ring of gun-barrels inside the normal ones.
"...Fighter Planes?!" The green-haired shrine maiden exclaimed. "That's overkill for just the five of us!"
"In the Outside World, there's no such thing as overkill." Yukari reminded from the Magic Codec. "Especially when their weapons are made to kill and destroy their targets. Just make a run for it, these V-01 Zapper fighter planes can only be outflew by Aya and Hatate."
By that time, the Malkrantian fighter planes got close enough to fire their weapons, which turns out to be Miniguns and laser guns used together, with both kinetic and energy projectiles whizzing past the girls. They were indeed fast enough to outfly the girls, and flew past them from above. The V-01 Zappers attempted to turn around to fire another volley.
"They sure are fast!" Marisa exclaimed.
Reimu and co drew their weapons and fired danmaku at the fighter planes. The latters' high speed makes it difficult to land a hit on them, especially when they're turning.
The V-01 Zappers turned around and fired another volley when they got close enough. This left them vulnerable to the girls' attacks, which befalls one of the planes by having one of Sakuya's knives jammed into a wing turbine, which burst into flames and caused the plane to lose altitude, crashing into the roof of a skyscraper.
The girls continued firing at the fighter planes that had just passed by them. One of the planes gets hit on it's tailblade, which got torn off by the shots and caused it to go out of control.
The remaining three planes made another turn and prepared for another volley.
"Leave this one to me..." Youmu said and drew out the Roukanken.
When the V-01 Zappers got close enough for another volley of shots, the half-ghost charged at them with her sword raised.
With a single slash, Youmu sliced the wings off all three fighter planes. The wingless aircrafts are now losing altitude at a rapid rate, then crashes into the street below, where they slid for a few meters before stopping.
"Swordsmanship prevails..." Youmu gave a toneless boast while sheathing the Roukanken.
Her ghost-half suddenly became active and smashed through one last V-01 Zapper that appeared out of nowhere. This attack tore one of it's wings off, and the kinetic energy from the ghost-half's attack was enough to send the fighter plane spinning horizontally as it loses altitude fast.
The girls took another look at the downed aircrafts, and finds that the seat has disappeared from each of the cockpits. "They must've ejected and escaped when we weren't looking." Sanae noted.
"They've sent in planes to take down the five of us, ze." Marisa sulked. "What's next? Those explosive missile-thingy like the ones Nitori has?"
"Even I have to call out: Damn you, Marisa!" Yukari suddenly called through the Magic Codec. "Look eastwards!"
The girls turned toward that direction, and saw the Soviet Squadron from earlier coming toward them.
"It's just those stupid soldiers. One Spell Card should be enough to take them out." Reimu said as she readies a few paper charms.
"Look higher..." Yukari added with a tone of worriedness.
Reimu and co looked higher above the approaching squadron.
"Sakuya, you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sanae glanced at the silver-haired maid with worry written on her face.
"Yes..." Sakuya replied. "They have just launched Cruise Missiles at us. The kind of weapon normally used only against fast-moving aircrafts and heavily armored ground vehicles..."
"Get hit by those Cruise Missiles, or even grazing them, and you're toast! You should definitely make a run for it, these are Tachkrovak Cruise Missiles, they're very fast, and chase you down too."
"Let's scram like Yukarin said!" Marisa quickly turned westwards and flew off at top speed.
"Hey, wait up!" Sanae yelled at the black-white, as she and the others followed her, with the Tachkrovak Cruise Missiles chasing them, and the Conscripts and Tengukiu Tanks firing at them.
Afterwords
Yes, Cruise Missiles, normally anti-tank weapons, are used against personnel in this story. I remember a game where the enemies are willing to use Ballistic Missiles against one lone soldier.
That's a bit overkill even for anime standards, right?
Yes, the Vladimir Lenin is Soviet Malkrantia's answer to the RSS Pacific Rim and the ADS Yamato 5, they're all futuristic battleship-carrier mixtures, known as Battlecarriers.
I'll leave the explanations for later chapters, or perhaps Mission 3, 4 and 5.
No shout-outs in this chapter.
That is all. "Do tekh por..."