Ace Combat: Restitution
An Ace Combat (fanfic/short story) brought on by
playing Ace Combat 5 and Ace Combat Zero until
six o' clock in the morning for three days in a row
(Written by The Great and Powerful Keski)
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Part Three
- - -
All held the finite and infinite as unrelated.
None could foresee that the history of the two would become one.
- - -
I was flying to Dresdene from Glubina, but I hadn't been flying for fifteen minutes when the landscape beneath me began to change. Dramatically. The ground grew greener and greener and I saw a deep and wide ravine beneath me. Instinctively, I knew exactly where I was, although I knew it wasn't possible—There was an ocean between me and that place.
And the ghost voices returned. This time they were louder, clearer than before. I didn't have to struggle to understand the loudest ones.
"Attention all aircraft, incoming from Stonehenge confirmed on radar. Drop below two thousand feet and head south to exit combat area."
"Two thousand feet? What do they expect us to do? Go underground?"
"Head toward the ravine and terrain mask. Use the crevasses. Get low and stay low."
"What are you talking about! It's suicide to fly into that ravine."
Yes, I was definitely back in Faith Park. That is, I was back in Faith Park on the 16th of December, 2004—Operation: Blackout. I didn't see any planes other than my own, but I heard everything clearly.
"This isn't possible," I found myself murmuring.
"What are you waiting for, Mobius 1?" Larry again. "You'd better dive. It might not be possible, but it's happening anyway, and if you're not below two thousand feet when that thing hits…"
"Yes, I know. I've done this before," I snapped. He just laughed.
I angled my plane southward and dove for the ravine.
"Four rounds," the AWACS voice said, "ETA in fifteen seconds."
I was into the ravine with more than enough time to spare.
"Thanks for the save," someone said.
Then AWACS began counting down. "Five, four, three, two, one, impact!" and I saw the shots overhead. They exploded, and the entire sky began to shimmer and shift in a bizarre manner, and the radio went wild.
"Rapier 4 was hit!"
"Omega 1 crashed!"
"Come in Vapor 9!"
"Viper 11 and Omega 5 are gone too!"
"Vapor 11 crashed!"
I remembered this… I'd heard all of it before… I'd never thought I would have to go through a hell like this again.
"Another wave from Stonehenge detected," AWACS reported. "Ten seconds to impact."
"Stay down in the ravine," someone else shouted.
"Five, four, three, two, one, impact!" and again the sky lit up, and again the screams on the radio… The screams, God, the screams wouldn't stop… They were dying, and I couldn't do anything.
"Halo 10 was shot down!"
"Omega 11 crashed!"
"Vapor 3 crashed!"
"Dammit, how many did we lose?"
"Stay focused and maintain aircraft control."
"Several aircraft didn't make it!"
"Evade, evade!"
"Rapier 8 crashed!"
"Rapier 4's gone," someone was crying.
My hands were shaking on the flight stick. I had to move faster, I suddenly realized. It would end once I got out of this area. Back then, it had ended as soon as I'd gotten out… This onslaught of killing would stop if I could just…
"They're throwing everything at us."
"No use! I can't get away!"
"Halo 7 is incommunicado."
I pushed the throttle up to the maximum and curved effortlessly around the bends in the ravine, checking my radar search screen every few seconds. Soon, and against all probability, I saw a white dotted line on the radar cut across where my path would take me. It was the return line. It was the 'end' of this. I willed my plane to go faster, faster, faster, and just as the sky began to shimmer and shift with another attack, I crossed over the line, and everything went still. Literally—the Stonehenge projectiles froze and vanished from the sky, the radio went silent, and everything went back to the way it had been before the AWACS voice had ever announced the Stonehenge attacks.
"You're good," the radio chirped in Larry's crystal-clear voice, so unlike the voices of the pilots screaming for help as Stonehenge butchered them. I pulled up smoothly and left the chasm. "I'm impressed with the way you screamed through that ravine. Keep flying, Mobius 1! You're almost done."
"Done?"
"I suppose I should say it is almost done."
"What is almost done, Larry?"
"You wouldn't understand if I told you. Well, maybe you would, but even so, you wouldn't believe it."
I cursed and punched the console in front of me. Then I slammed myself back into the seat and closed my eyes. I had to at least try and stay calm. I hadn't become a legend—multiple times—by panicking in desperate situations.
Ghosts.
All around me, I was seeing shimmering, translucent planes of all models, as clear as glass.
"First voices, now ghost planes," I murmured. "I really am going crazy."
"You aren't going crazy," Larry said. "Not really. It's more complicated than that. But you're free to think that you're insane if you like."
The landscape of Faith Park suddenly fell away with a long strip of beach. I had a sinking feeling I was returning to Operation: Judgement Day. I saw the ghost planes all around me, and I knew I was right. It was September 26, 2005, and I knew I was about to destroy Megalith.
The voices faded, then swelled, washing over me like an ocean of apparitions.
"SkyEye here. All Mobius aircraft report in." The voice of the AWACS craft. And then…
"Mobius 2 on standby."
"Mobius 3 through 7 on standby."
"Mobius 8 on standby."
"Preparations are complete, ready for battle," the AWACS said. "All aircraft, follow Mobius 1!"
And all of the ghost planes fell into formation behind me. As time progressed, they were getting more and more solid. I could still see through them. They were smoky, strange looking, but beautiful, in a way.
It was cloudy, and we were now over an ocean. There was a small group of islands before us.
Megalith, I knew, rested on the largest of those islands. I pushed the throttle up and waited for the Yellows to appear…
"I see them!" The bad guys were speaking now. "Got a tally ho on the bandits."
"You're not going to believe this, Jean-Louis. All of them have ribbon insignias!"
"Mobius 1, engage." The AWACS was talking to me.
It was the first time one of these ghosts had actually addressed me, but I wasn't about to waste my time with these planes. If I remembered correctly, there was a ground force inside the facility already, trying to open the heat vents to the Megalith missile's bay so that I could get out after I flew in. They needed me to blow up three generators, and then I had to destroy the missile itself. And then it would be over, and I could find out what was going to happen next.
I flew low down to the water as I approached the tunnel leading to the generator on the left.
"Mobius 1, bandit on your tail. Turn hard!"
I didn't bother. If the Yellow launched a missile, I'd wheel around and give him what-for, but unless necessary, I wasn't going to spare any concentration—or missiles—for anything but Megalith.
"Only Erusian fighters should be flying this airspace."
"Sweep them from our skies!"
And the ground force began to speak:
"Bravo 1 here. All teams are on the 13th floor. But we can't get the sub control room to open. It's an electronic lock. We'll hold the position until the generators are destroyed. So hurry up!"
I was in the tunnel. The sounds of battle were coming from what I knew to be the ground force's radios.
"Here they come. Don't let the enemy get through panel K."
"Altman, use your hand grenades!"
"Dammit! They've got a flamethrower!"
"Shoot! Shoot! Over by the stairs!"
There it was, the generator, to my left, just as before. I released a single missile and saw the generator explode. I pulled the throttle down and pulled up sharply to stay within the contours of the tunnel, then angled the nose down again toward the exit. I was once again in open skies. It took me a few moments to get to the second tunnel, but once in, it took only an instant for me to get to the end, destroy the generator resting in the centre of the tunnel, and fly through the empty space where the second generator had once stood. The third and final generator was in a passage that ran perpendicular to the first two tunnels. As I pulled out of the second tunnel, I wrenched the plane around to the right, flew out to gain distance, then turned around and lined up to fly into the passage. It wasn't difficult to get through and destroy the last generator. After doing this, I wheeled around, and took a second to locate the final tunnel, which would lead to the missile itself. I flew in, blew up the missile, flew out of the opening entryway, and almost shouted as my plane began to shake violently. What had happened? Had something gone wrong? But I'd done it just the same as before!
The voices were once again silent, all of the ghost planes gone.
My plane stopped shaking. The warning alert was active, but there weren't any missiles, or anything like that, inbound.
I heard a boom, as of distant thunder, but it lasted only an instant and was gone. A second later, an enormous ripple spread out across… everything. The ripple was invisible in itself. I saw it, though, in the clouds, and in the water—giant waves, more than twice the height of Megalith, erupted. Megalith was entirely submerged, then it resurfaced, only to be encompassed by another tidal wave of monstrous proportions. I actually had to fly a few thousand feet higher to avoid the water myself. The ripple faded, and another one came. I noticed that the water was gradually receding. The ocean itself was growing shallower, and each wave covered less and less of Megalith, until Megalith and its island stood out like a mountain in this ocean. Another ripple extended from the distance. The water was receding faster. Megalith's mountain stood above everything as a huge monument, and then the water was gone. I flew over a dry, desolate plain, like a desert.
Then Megalith exploded with a force that pushed my plane away and almost sent me spinning out of control. I managed to stabilize the plane, though, just in time to see huge pieces of the Megalith falling to the earth below. No traces of it remained on the mountain, but I watched as the massive chunks of the thing smashed into the ground below and were obliterated. The ground was now changing its form. Parts of it were rising up in mounds, and Megalith's mountain was now sinking, growing smaller by the second. My plane's altimeter was going wild, fluctuating between several hundred feet, to several thousand, and back again.
Another ripple erupted. The movement of the clouds told me that this one was much stronger before it hit, but I was still caught unawares—my plane did start to spin when the force hit me, but I was rolling sideways, and was just barely able to level the plane off before it was too late. The effect of the ripple on the ground below, however, was even greater than it had been on my SU-37. The shifting of the land was intensely accelerated, and a mountain range had begun to spring up beneath me. Megalith's mountain was part of it. And with a jolt, I realized where I was:
This was B7R.
