"Is that-"
"It's them," Eva cut Poet off, answering his question before he could even answer it. How Rogue Squadron ended up with three Skyshards fighting for Free Erusea, she had no idea, but it didn't matter to her anymore. It was either them or her squadron- her friends, and she wasn't going to let her friends die after everything they've been through, especially not when they were so close to the finish line. "All squadrons withdraw from the AO immediately," she ordered. "This is Kestrel Squadron's fight, so we'll take care of it. I don't want to lose anyone else to them."
"You-"
"This isn't a request!" Eva snapped before Clown had any time to object. "Now get out of here!"
A few moments later, the allied fighter started breaking off one by one, eventually leaving Kestrel Squadron alone to face Rogue Squadron, something the former convicts quickly noticed. "Damn, you really are a stuck-up prick, aren't you, Vortex?" Magnum taunted the pilot he thought was leading the squadron.
Eva flinched. She almost didn't want to say anything, but the words came out whether she wanted them to or not. "Vortex is dead, Magnum, which means these people- my friends… they're my responsibility, and I'd sooner die before letting you hurt them."
Magnum cackled. "Ah… well, that certainly explains a lot. It's a shame, really. I was hoping I'd at least get to see the bastard go down. Hell, I was hoping I'd be the one to do it. In the end, though, he was only another obstacle keeping me from getting to you, so it only makes my job easier."
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Zero interjected.
"Wait a minute, is that…" Dodger burst out laughing as he put two and two together. "Holy shit, you're joking, right? You honest to god have the merc that tried to kill us multiple times flying in your squadron? Just goes to show how backward your priorities are."
"I'm giving Zero a second chance the same way I tried to give you all a second chance," Diamond replied. "The same way Slipstream-"
"Shut up!" Magnum snapped. "You aren't worthy to say his name. I hope you've made your peace, Diamond. Because now it's time for you and Vortex to be reunited."
Eva took a deep breath, staring down the three Skyshards as she flew toward them with her wingmen on either side of her. "Not today," she murmured. "Kestrel Squadron… engage!"
"Axe is mine," Poet called out instantly. "Time to finally make him pay for killing Trench."
"Remember, two or more on each target," Lucky reminded everyone. "Charger, let's go for Dodger."
"Diamond, I've got your back," Zero assured Eva. "You take the lead, and I'll follow."
"Here we go," Eva murmured to herself. "One last fight before it's all finally over." Without wasting another second, she switched on her afterburners as she approached the three Skyshards head-on.
All three Skyshards activated their IEWS simultaneously, forcing Eva to do the same. As they finally got within range, though, she saw that her missiles couldn't lock onto their target. The sound of her eventual missile lock beeped incessantly as if it was seconds away from finally finding its mark, but the solid tone never came. Once Eva finally realized her missiles weren't going to lock on, she quickly turned to evade, heaving her plane to the right as Magnum turned to follow while Zero went left to circle around.
"David? Are you still on the line?" Eva asked, pitching straight up to evade an incoming missile fired by Magnum. "What's going on with my missiles? Shouldn't my IEWS be countering theirs out?" Another missile alert went off, and as Eva looked down at her radar, she saw it was too close to evade, forcing her to launch chaff and flares instead.
"There's more of them than there are of you, so theirs is overwhelming yours," David explained. "You'll have to take them out with unguided weaponry."
"Unguided weaponry?" Magic echoed with annoyance as she dove down toward the ground, picking up speed rapidly to make a quick evasive maneuver to shake off Axe from her tail. "Are you really expecting us to get a gun kill on these pricks?"
Making a high-G turn downward and to the left, Eva suddenly had a realization. "That's not our only unguided weaponry."
Without saying another word, Eva's thumb slid down the control stick until it reached the button to deploy her railgun. "System power at… One hundred percent," the computerized voice informed her. "Error: targeting correcting non-responsive."
"Shit," Eva growled. "Their jamming must be interfering with the targeting correction." She looped around and headed straight back up into the sky, flying perpendicular to Magnum and getting some space between them while Zero distracted her. "Looks like I'm gonna have to do this manually."
It took a moment for Eva to find the button, but the moment she realized where it was, she was already moving to press it. "Warning: Manual targeting engaged," the computer told her.
Unfortunately for Eva, however, Magnum had a similar plan. The Rogue Squadron pilot tore away from Zero at lightning speed and headed toward the pilot she longed to kill for so long. Eva tried to keep her sights centered on Magnum as best she could, but the other Skyshard's speed and maneuverability made it difficult. When she finally took the shot, Eva quickly found that the only thing she hit was Magnum's contrails from a few seconds prior. She yanked her control stick back, forcing her plane upward to evade the inevitable shot from Magnum. Fortunately, her shot missed as well, thanks to a missile from Zero forcing her to miss.
"God damn, these planes sure aren't making things easy," Charger grumbled as he and Lucky came at Dodger from opposite directions, resulting in him jolting upward effortlessly. "We already had our work cut out for us when they were flying regular planes."
"How the hell did Free Erusea get their hands on these things?" Magic asked as she flared a missile from Axe and broke right before he could get any hits on her with his guns. "In fact, better question: why the hell are these assholes fighting for Free Erusea?"
"Because Free Erusea offered us something Osea never did: our freedom," Magnum replied as she launched a pair of MSTMs at Zero, which he only narrowly evaded. "We were nothing but pawns to Osea, just like you. With Free Erusea, though, we actually get to be someone, and we're defined by more than just our crimes."
At that moment, all three jamming signals from the Rogue Squadron planes shut off, followed shortly after by Eva's, giving her a chance to finally launch a salvo of four MSTMs at Magnum. "And so you'd rather die fighting for these fascists than just wait another week or two to get Gates your pardon?" she challenged.
Magnum scoffed as she evaded the missiles with ease and made an aggressive turn toward Eva. "Gates was never gonna give us our pardon. Are you really so damn naïve that you can't see that? This is the only option, and it always has been the only option. Because I'd rather die fighting for my freedom than live out the rest of my days as a prisoner of a country that doesn't give a damn about any of us."
"You still don't get it, do you, Diamond? In a few years, you'll be no different from us. They'll cast you aside after all the blood, sweat, and tears you poured out for them, and they'll make you out to be a monster, just like us," Magnum explained as she curled up and around to follow Eva, going for guns whenever she had a clear shot.
Eva tried time and time again to get Magnum off her tail as she made one sharp turn after another. "I've said it already: I'm not anybody's pawn. I'm fighting so that the people back home don't have to- so they can live out their lives. This is my burden to bear, so that's exactly what I'm gonna do." She pulled the throttle back and cut her speed, curling up and around as she tried to get an angle on Magnum, who began doing the same.
"Tell me, Diamond; Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I don't know what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Magnum snarled as she got in as close to Eva as she possibly could while continuing her attempt to honor her promise.
The two instruments of war, death, and destruction circled around each other. Their contrails drew the shape of a double helix while the rival pilots, locked in a bitter stalemate, looked for any opening they could find to send the other falling to the desert below in a ball of fire. Neither gave the other any indication of yielding, though. Any maneuver one made, the other mirrored. Any attack one launched, the other would evade and then return. By that point, staying alive was secondary for both of them. All that mattered was bringing the other down by any means necessary.
Finally, the key to breaking the stalemate came in the form of Axe's panicked voice. "Dammit! I can't shake them. I need he-" His voice was replaced by static as the first Skyshard was knocked out of the sky, courtesy of a missile from Poet.
"Axe!" Magnum called out in vain, already on the verge of tears. "You bastards are gonna pay for that!" she bellowed.
"Funny, that's almost word-for-word what I said when he killed Trench," Poet said bitterly. "Payback's a bitch, isn't it Magnum? Almost as much as you."
"Let's see how you like it when I take someone you care about!" she roared before cutting back on the throttle and pulling up into a cobra behind Diamond, throwing up her IEWS to cast her net even further.
"Diamond, shake her off!" Zero called out as he sped toward the two pilots.
Eva grunted under the weight of the G-forces as she pulled upward as fast as she could, but Magnum remained glued to her tail. "I can't get her off my back!" she realized as she turned in every direction she could think of, trying to evade the former convict. Her fears only doubled at the sound of the missile warning in her cockpit.
Looking over her shoulder, Eva saw Magnum and the two missiles she launched heading straight toward her. What she didn't expect to see, however, was Zero, getting closer and closer. He let out a cry of determination as he hit the afterburners and flew right between Diamond and the missiles' path, causing them to crash into him.
"Zero, what the hell was that?" Eva demanded as she took the opportunity to pull away from Magnum. Even as she made a high-G turn to the left, putting herself perpendicular to Magnum, she kept her eyes locked on Zero's F-35 trailing smoke and fire behind it.
Zero chuckled. "It's like I said, Diamond: you're not dying if I have anything to say about it." Eva could hear several different warnings going off in the background as he spoke.
"Forget about that. Just bail out already," she ordered.
"Right, yeah. And… thanks again, Diamond. For everything," Zero said before his voice was followed by static.
Magnum cackled. "One down, five to go," she sneered. "And you're next, you bitch."
The moment Eva saw Zero's parachute, she jerked her plane toward Magnum to face her head-on. "Not today, I'm not."
Neither pilot had a chance to score any hits as they flew straight toward each other, so they both rolled in different directions, coming only a few dozen meters from hitting each other. While Eva looped downward, Magnum went in the opposite direction, causing them to form a figure-eight of sorts as they tried to joust each other once more. Eva deployed her railgun and fired, missing her shot by the smallest of margins before launching flares to counter the missiles Magnum launched. As the two planes broke away from one another, they tried to face each other a third time, and it appeared that they'd have another stalemate on their hands, but an opportunity presented itself not for Diamond or Magnum, but for Charger and Lucky.
"Dammit! Magnum, I- I think I'm done for," Dodger said. "But hey… at least I stuck with you to the en-"
Magnum's only response at first was a sigh, weighed down by the loss of the men she considered to be her brothers. "You know… I promised them we'd all live to see and enjoy our freedom. There was a time when I even thought Slipstream and Trench would be there with us, but I failed them- I failed all of them." For the first time since she met her, Eva could feel the pain and sorrow in Magnum's voice. All it did was make her wish things hadn't turned out the way they did.
"Magnum, it's over. Surrender now, and this can all end," Eva pleaded. "Please, there's no need to continue fighting on your own."
Magnum laughed. "You still don't get it. The fact that I'm fighting on my own is why I have to see this through. I have to win, so their deaths weren't in vain, or I have to die trying."
"Everyone, leave this fight to Diamond. She can handle it," Lucky instructed the other three. "We'll form a perimeter to keep her from getting away."
Eva took a long, deep breath. Every choice that had been made, every battle that had been fought, and every soul that had been lost led to this moment in time- the fight between two pilots that were once wingmen. Even if they never did agree on anything, they still entrusted each other with their lives, and now they were trying to take them. Turning toward Magnum's Skyshard to chase after it, Eva prepared herself to finally end this once and for all. She deployed her IEWS, and Magnum did the same shortly after, but since it was just the two of them, now, all they did was cancel each other out. Eva slipped behind Magnum and fired a pair of MSTMs, which the last Rogue Squadron pilot flared before pitching straight up into the sky. She rolled over and over again as Eva turned up to follow. The two pilots climbed higher and higher into the sky before eventually, Magnum did a complete 180 turn to fly straight back toward the ground. Eva waited a few moments before following after her, and by the time she did, Magnum was already on her way back up, bringing the two pilots into a face-off. Eva reached down for a button on her control stick and pressed it. Then, her thumb held itself firm just above the trigger. She hesitated for a moment, but a moment was all it was. As tracers spewed out from Magnum's plane, a single shot from Eva's railgun echoed across the desert, bringing with it a silence that hadn't been felt in what felt like months. Magnum, along with the rest of Rogue Squadron, was dead.
"So… it's finally over, then- for real this time," Charger said in between deep breaths.
"I told you all we could do it," Lucky added, smiling from ear to ear. "As long as we've got the Blue Kestrel with us."
"How does it feel to be a hero, Diamond? Magic asked in a slightly teasing voice.
Eva continued her descent before eventually pulling up around 1500 meters from the ground. "Like I've got an enormous weight lifted off my whole body- like I can finally breathe again." She raised the visor on her helmet to wipe a few tears from her eyes. "All thanks to you guys."
"How about we say we all did it because we had each other and leave it at that instead of trying to give all the credit to one side?" Poet suggested with a light chuckle.
"Hey, Warlock 1 here. Did you lose something up there, Diamond?" Garth asked.
"Oh, so I'm just a thing now?" Zero asked sarcastically. "I see how it is."
Eva snickered. "You still in one piece down there, Zero?"
"Yep. I got to see that whole thing go down. It was a nice way to keep me busy on the way down," the former mercenary replied lightheartedly.
"Well, that was a stupid stunt you pulled, but it saved my life, so… thank you."
"I'm just looking out for my wingman- er… wingwoman, I guess."
Eva smiled. "Hey, Sky Keeper, are we finally clear?"
"Affirmative. Picture is clean, Kestrel Squadron. Let's get you home," the AWACS operator answered.
"Heh, I bet Torch'll be waiting to hear all about this one," Charger said.
"Then, we'd better not keep him waiting," Eva replied.
As the Blue Kestrel made an extended circle around the remnants of Galar Fortress, she couldn't help but smile one last time. They won. She couldn't stop saying those words in her mind over and over again. Slowly but surely, the other four F-35Cs slipped into formation- two on either side of her as they made their way back home.