Total Eclipse
【Background Music: Release of the Far West Ocean】
【Extracted from Video Game "Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim"】
Sol Squadron launches another barrage of railgun to Trigger and Count, and misses again. "A miss, as expected. But a lucky shot would be boring." Leader of the squadron, Mihaly Dumitru Margareta Corneliu Leopold Blanca Karol Aeon Ignatius Raphael Maria Niketas A. Shilage, is excusing their failures of hitting the marks. Nice try you old bastard, but you can't hide the truth that is a X-02S Strike Wyvern's railgun is fixed to point straight forward, with no specified sniper interface despite being an "anti-material sniper cannon", all it has is merely a simple, immovable reticule displayed on HUD, consisted by a circle and a dot in its center, just like Bandog's comment on Helios Missiles — crappy design.
Both squadrons get much nearer head-to-head, Sol Squadron switches to turbine laser cannons, firing five indigo-colored beams of concentrated photons which are radically swaying and generating high-pitch noises by ionizing atmospheric molecules — because they're forced to spread out if they don't want to get hit by Trigger and Counts salvos of missiles — thus revealing another crappy design — those laser cannons are also fixed to point dead ahead, and no specified interfaces for precise aiming as well. Just which idiot was in charge of designing X-02S? He really is foolish isn't he?
After flying through each other's formation, the two opposing teams break into singles, continue the fight for deciding who will be the apex predator(s) to tyrannize the sky. Trigger's team is on defense since Mihaly's team has advantages of number and equipment, especially the weaponry, even a slight graze will be good night. However this fact doesn't mean she and her wingman can't snatch victory from the odds.
Bandog: "There're the strange readings again…be careful, Sol Squadron, or some member of them, are charging up railguns." At the same time the ace duo of Osean side also see the ripples on their avionic displays. A railgun requires a tremendous amount of energy to fire, and since being opened-up structures, they're not good in concealing such tremendous electromagnetic energies, thus can be picked up (or affect) sensors from quite a distance, so with some crafty designs, avionics can notify the pilots where a railgun is aiming and is about to fire by displaying a "gun line" as an advance warning. To say the least, even the oldest sensors, commonly known as "eyes", can have visual conformations of bright glows. Trigger and Count dodge another barrage of five railgun slugs, fired from five different angles.
"I can't hit a goddam thing!" Sol 5, according to the intel his name is "Roald", complains.
"Quit griping." Says Sol 2, intel says his name is "Wit".
"I like griping."
"Knock it off!" Mihaly barks, harshly: "If your hardware isn't enough, put your soul into it. Now continue engagement or face punishment!"
"Geez, already having internal strives?" Count chuckles: "Typical villains, rather fight among themselves than fight the heroes like us."
"The Mobius 1 wannabe and Yellow 13 wannabe, or should I say Three Strikes and the consort of Three Strikes, we have your surrounded, surrender or we'll destroy you." As if being reminded there are onlookers, Mihaly turns his attention to Trigger and Count.
"Wow! So you were in earshot, Mihaly Dumitru Margareta Corneliu Leopold Blanca Karol Aeon Ignatius Raphael Maria Niketas A. Shilage?" Count pretends to exclaim: "Tough talk, for a sorry excuse of pilots, but the objective truth is you and your lapdogs are surrounded, and you don't have what it takes to best us. My leader royally had you cornered before, you survived only for she was kind enough to spare you several days to bid farewell to your granddaughters. So did you finish saying goodbye? Won't grant you another chance this time."
"You defile this country. As long as you're here, this continent will never know peace."
"Ha! This country? Soon this country will be nothing but a prime example of total failure!" Count deliberately provokes the adversaries, especially the one in lead: "I had defiled your fatherland and your capital for so long, and had so much fun! What you can do? Burn my toast? Is there anything still undefiled here? Oh yeah, your granddaughters. Ionela and Alma, right? They'll be defiled in no time, probably by me." To further enhance the effect of provoking, he gives a continuous laughter. Trigger remains silent: Let Count talks, give the battle to herself, Osea will have the war.
"You bastard!" Mihaly is a veteran after all, so he doesn't fall for the tricks, at least for now, but his subordinates are young and prone to be irritated. For example, an enraged Wit charges to Count, guns blazing. Count evades attacks with ease, Trigger had taught him many things, insufficient to enable him to outclass Sol Squadron, but more than enough to survive.
As Sol 2 keeps pursuing Count, the other four Sol Squadron members go after him, and are shouting on radio to order him to stand down, for keeping him stay alive. However a male can be ridiculously stupid, Wit kicks on full afterburner and chases Count, also charges up railgun, intending to terminate him with a single, well-placed shot, not knowing he is alone and being alone is not a good idea here and now. Before he can fire, suddenly Count executes a canopy roll, transiting to another parallel lane of flight and exposing the pursuer to Trigger who is approaching dead ahead.
Trigger fires and Wit explodes, he's lucky for being crucified to his seat by the very first couple of slugs from her guns, subsequently spared from experiencing the stimulations of X-02S' explosions, which would be too excitant for a human.
"That good-for-nothing moron!" Mihaly curses: "Ally down, stay on offensive, constraint their movements!" Four remaining Sol Squadron fighters regroup and charges to Trigger and Count in a formation, firing railguns, turbine laser cannons and plasma cannons in unison, achieving zero hits. Then they split up to different directions to siege the duo from different angles, in an attempt to cage them in by lasers. However they're already one plane short and not to mention even with five-aircraft-strong, Trigger and Count can still squeeze their ways out from the interweaving laser beams with ease, so the attempt fails naturally.
"She's all over me!" Shouts Sol 3, official name "Seymour", in panic. Trigger is tightly behind him as if an iron slab to a strong magnet, no matter what evasive actions he takes, she just keeps a virtually unchanged relative position.
Missile alarm blares, Trigger launches a salvo of four XMAA and two SASM. Sol 3 flings chaffs and executes a high-g turn to avoid being hit, little does he know that he's already dead meat, for Trigger uses a perfectly timed canopy roll to place his X-02S' back right in her attack cone's center.
Trigger takes snapshots and Seymour…well not explodes, but a large hole is punctured on his fighter's back, resulting all red lights in cockpit twinkles like crazy with deafening warnings, forcing him to eject. Trigger fires again, blasting the hapless parachute-attached pilot into meat paste even his own mother won't be able to recognize who he is.
"I'll make you pay for this outrage!" Sol 4, with the name "Hermann", is seeking revenge against that Osean ace that slays two colleagues in his team, going after her and firing all weapons, with Sol 5 and Mihaly's cooperation. Trigger suddenly does a cobra without leveling her fighter — normally when a pilot is about to pull this maneuver, he/she must keep the aircraft leveled, but not for Trigger because she processes the skill of doing it without fulfilling such requirement. Due to the unbalanced dynamic, the Raptor tilts aside when it's vertical, and utilizing the momentum to carry out a super-fast, hyper-tightened loop of inclination. During this process, Sol 4 is effectively sliced into halves by Trigger's continuous flows of slugs, and explodes in midair. Rest in pieces pal, if you still have some pieces left for a burial.
"Sorry I screwed up, King, may the battle be yours." Sol 5 is the next to be stricken out from the list of active services and is added to the list of deceased. Trigger executes him by another unique move: Pitching up for a semi-cobra, and completely reversing the direction where the nose is pointing by tilting for 180 degrees as the attitude reaches vertical. Doing so enables her to fire guns straight down to Sol 5's canopy, but weaponry mounted on an aircraft never meant to be used on personnel, therefore the entire sections of X-02S' nose and cockpit are blown off, and it's safe to assume the pilot doesn't survive.
Only one Sol Squadron member is remaining — Mihaly, also known as Sol 1, callsign "Archange" according to intel. Bandog indeed had relayed the special order of dragging the fight to Trigger, for collecting these prototypes' performance, but it didn't mean she needs to keep all of them airborne and intact, that Shilage guy alone is enough for a test subject.
【Background Music Stops】
【Background Music: Desert of Despair】
【Extracted from Video Game "Ys Seven"】
"You defeated my entire squadron, I expect nothing less." Says Mihaly, he doesn't show any signs of condolences to his newly-decommissioned wingmen, instead being quite excited: "Now just you and me, ace to ace, one shall stand, one shall fall."
"I have a better idea: Pulling your sidearm and placing a cap directly into your own head." Count taunts: "Right temple if you're right-handed or left temple if you're left-handed, at least it'll be quicker and less painful than ojou-sama beating your entrails out of you."
"Not if I beat hers out of her first." Mihaly charges up railgun and fires to Trigger, only to be dodged lazily and easily. Trigger deliberately positions herself just hundreds of meters in front of Mihaly and every time he fires, she evades accordingly, not only for humiliating him, also for observing and recording data regarding how an X-02S acts in an actual combat.
"All the credits you receive…will be mine. I will defeat you to prove I'm the one true dominator of the sky!" Mihaly strikes again with railgun, and undoubtedly, Trigger makes her avoidance with a prettily-done canopy roll, then abruptly pulls a Chandelle to attack him with her missiles and guns. Taken by surprise, Mihaly barely escapes a premature KIA, and an f-bomb almost slips out from his mouth.
"Stupid machine! How can you fail me?!" Mihaly snarls, frustrated by after wasting so many ammunition, still can't even get a graze on Trigger's hull, much less a hit. His avionics send out warnings of overheating resulted by excessively frequent firing of armaments, as if a retort: "No, it is you, dumbass, who lack the proper fighting skills. Don't you see? She thinks so, too!"
"We've watched enough. Now Trigger, he's all yours, finish him off in three minutes." Bandog, packing all observation and evaluation data transmitted from Trigger and Count's customized Raptor and Terminator in his onboard system, issues the final directive.
"Very well." With the swiftness shouldn't belong to a human, Trigger does an Immelmann turn with almost zero diameter, pointing her weaponry to the pursing X-02S, firing guns to destroy its raingun that extended out from main weapon bay located between air intakes. Before Mihaly can react, she flies past him head-on, and implements same trick again, smashing both engines.
X-02S is falling like a stone with heavy smokes and flames trailing from its rear. Trigger flies around the disabled prototype and attacks again and again, blowing off tails, main wings, air intakes…knowing cockpit is next, Mihaly ejects, and his expectation is proved correct — four ODMM are launched to cockpit, pulverizing this section as well as the rest of fuselage.
"I'll be back with an even more lethal squadron and even better aircraft, then we'll decide who's the apex predator again!" Mihaly is still cursing: "This is my kingdom! I am the one, not you!"
"You talk too much old fool. But even you spend as long practicing your flying techniques as you do your rubbish-talking, you're still insignificant next to our Trigger." Count sighs: "Hey ojou-sama, care to shut him up and shut him down permanently?" He doesn't need to remind Trigger for her is charging directly to the ejected enemy squadron leader with full afterburner, and is charging to him from head-on.
Just seconds before his perishment, Mihaly has a vision: A skeleton-like Grim Reaper, in black robe and holding a scythe, flying straight to him with a hideous grin.
Then his head is amputated by the wingtip of Trigger's Raptor. The decapitated head, still in helmet, carried by momentum, flies straight to lens while spewing blood, blackening out the entire frame. This is the end of Sol Squadron, and due to the collapse of Erusean government marked by the fall of their capital the pilots' relatives won't get any death benefits for their demises. Ouch, they really suck. On the other hand, Trigger once said she would reap Mihaly's head, and she does what she said. Yeah, she really rules.
【Background Music Stops】
Farbanti is burning in night. Occupying Osean forces are relocating POW and remaining civilians to designated camps constructed in neighboring regions, as well as seizing all valuables, meanwhile setting vacated areas ablaze. When all people who're still alive and anything worthy for salvaging are moved away, entire city will be incinerated. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, garbage to garbage.
LRSSG returns to Cape Rainy, and undoubtedly are given a heroic welcome. Apart from the cheering and applauding crowd, dozens of captured Erusean flags are tossed to their feet — an old Osean tradition: Trampling on flags of defeated enemies like treading on doormats, as a declaration of victory and a humiliation to the vanquished.
"You're the head of the state! Decide now!" Screen-wall is playing footage recorded from perspective of a security camera, it looks like a conference room decorated with royal etiquette, Rosa Cossette D'Elise, the princess of Kingdom of Erusea also the one who comes to the first place on the blacklist of major war criminals, and several officials of politic and military, are sitting around the council board, and one of the officials speaks to princess with a pressing tone. The timestamp displayed at frame's corner shows the event occurs just two hours before implementation of Operation Eternal Damnation.
"You're right, this can't go on, we must negotiate our terms before forced into an unconditional surrender." Rosa Cossette D'Elise sighs, her elation during the initial phase of the war had long become a memory of unpleasantness: "We can give back Lighthouse and secede a portion of our territories, and hand over aviation technologies as bargain chips, they should be willing to spare us."
"I'm against surrendering any lands to Osea!" A general rises to his feet and shouts: "Unacceptable! It's the ultimate humiliation to our ancestors and to our children! If it isn't you your highness, I would immediately start a revolt to fight to the bitter end!"
"Really? If your men fought a little harder, not to say win the war, but at least keep Oseans out of boundaries, then we wouldn't be so screwed! Trapped like rats in this collective coffin!" A political official shoots back sarcastically.
"Don't be so self-righteous! You bureaucracies are all the same! Selfish and foolish! Why you started this war in the first place? Erusea and Osea were friends back then! And we were supposed to get a huge cut from the revenue generated by the space elevator for free! Look at what we had been reduced to! Facing one defeat after another, watching our fatherland dwindling like dehydration! Those Oseans even spread propaganda to the entire world to describe us as thieves, robbers, backstabbing traitors and the common enemies to humankind! Every nation on this planet is scolding us, and had cut off all trade with us! Now we're short on everything! Including daily salt! Even Belka in Belkan War couldn't be this miserable! Hell, I should shoot all of you dead for high treason!" He's losing his temper, placing a hand on the sidearm strapped to his belt.
"I'll shoot you dead if you dare to draw your gun!" Another military officer who also bears insignias of general, prepares to pull out his pistol as leaving his chair, meanwhile guards in background react in the same way, seems Erusean leadership is about to terminate itself by infighting, before Oseans do it externally, but hey, ever since it started the war, its destruction was sealed.
"Everybody calm down, please!" Rosa Cossette D'Elise stands up and throws both hands on table: "We're on the same boat! We should stick together to get through this, not tear ourselves apart! I know it's a difficult decision, but this is a hard dose we must swallow to ensure our race's survival! As long as Erusea exists, our hopes and dreams live on…"
"Spare me your 'same boat', 'our race' crap!" Says the general who just almost lost his temper: "I could laugh if my heart isn't so heavy for current situation. I'm never on your boat nor be a part of your race! Your ancestors annexed my ethnicity's fatherland centuries ago, forcing us to give up our parent language passed down through generations, eliminating our indigenous culture lasted for millennia! I owe no obligations to your race, neither my regiments!" He promptly leaves for the door, obviously Erusea does quite an awful job of ethnic policies, just like Belka before Belkan War.
The door bursts open for several rifle-wielding soldiers storm in, and open fire to everyone. All of them perish in seconds, save for Rosa Cossette D'Elise who got a couple of 7.62×51mm cartridges buried in her abdomen. Soldiers walk up to guarantee everyone's death by placing additional rounds into their bodies, one of them points his gun to Rosa Cossette D'Elise who is gasping for last bit of air.
"Halt!" Someone orders from behind, the soldier stands down and steps aside, revealing a figure in glasses and white gown. "Giving up so soon, my dear?" White Gown comes close to the dying princess.
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: "The war has failed, we must…we must…"
"Your war means nothing, this is about revenge, revenge for my fatherland, Principality of Belka!"
"You…you're Belkan?!" Rosa Cossette D'Elise's eyes widen by both utter shock and terminal pain: "You used me…"
"Yes I used you, your father, and that old fool who fancies himself the king of sky…what's that idiot's name again? Never mind. As well as all people in this pathetic small country who thinks it belongs to the First World. I seduced you after finding you're the princess, manipulated your government's mind via manipulating your father's mind, via manipulating you. Everything just worked out so accordingly, even I felt amazed."
"…how…how could you do this…after I gave you all my trusts…and my virginity…I even stopped using condoms by your request…don't you know I'm pregnant for you?"
"I don't know, nor do I care. You're never my type, not pretty enough, nor busty and slender enough, and so dimwitted." White Gown walks away and tells the soldier: "Put her out of misery and get her clearances."
"Ja, herr arzt." The soldier fires a shot to Rosa Cossette D'Elise's throat, effectively turning off her physiological functions, then drags her corpse out of camera's angle. Meanwhile White Gown is talking with his cellphone: "What do you mean 'need extra hours to pack up'?! You have no excuses of delays, just take what's the most essential! Girls? They're not our concern, leave them behind, if they can't keep their mouths shut, kill them…sehr gut, I'll rendezvous with you there."
Footage on the screen-wall stops and fades, replaced by the idle interface of LRSSG's battle control system. Bandog: "That's what we savaged from security achieves of Erusean Royal Residence, and ground troops found Rosa Cossette D'Elise's corpse badly maimed, missing one eye and one hand, apparently removed surgically, and also discovered she's carrying a fetus of about one month in her womb."
"That really sucks." Count comments: "Sadly you can't gut Lady Mussolini up-close and personal like gutting a fish, ojou-sama."
Bandog: "DOD has ordered to transport her remains back to Oured and preserve in formaldehyde solution for public display, as a message to the rest of the world what will happen if anyone dares to mess with us."
"Sweet. Guess some Eruseans will knee before us to beg for returning the bitch's body…correction, dead body…correction again, incomplete dead body." Count whistles: "Nah, I don't think there will be many Eruseans remaining, I mean living ones, if you want dead Eruseans there are a lot of them lying around."
The screen-wall shows two photos of frontal view and side view, with associated information. "We've identified the man in white gown by facial recognition system, the name is Schroeder, chief scientist of EASA and head of Erusean UCAV programs, but the true identity is a high-ranking member of Grey Men and of the now-defunct Gründer Industries." Bandog explains: "According to info dug out by intelligence services, this Schroeder fled from North Osea after Gründer Industries was dismantled by Osea and Yuktobania, after Belkan Conflict. Disguising himself as a teacher, he hid in a university to avoid the general hunt of Grey Men's operatives, the same university Rosa Cossette D'Elise happened to attend. After acknowledging who she is, he actively approached her and seduced her into a carnal relationship, thus making him and his followers' ways into Erusea and further manipulating its government into a war against us, meanwhile assuming his post in EASA for creating technologies for the war. We pinpointed Sol Squadron's base of operation by decoding downed X-02S' flight recorders recovered by Avril Mead's savage team, it's believed this facility is also where Schroeder conducted his R&D projects. A taskforce is to be launched to raid that place in one hour, before Schroeder and his staff can evacuate with fruition of their projects, as well as with Rosa Cossette D'Elise's retina and fingerprint as the clearances to activate hidden superweapons. You're to provide air support for the taskforce, your planes had been thoroughly replenished for this operation. Dismiss."
"It's fine to stay, if you feel like to rest." In hangar, Trigger tells Count.
"With due respect ojou-sama, you need someone to draw away enemy fires, so I'd like to come, with your approval."
"Approved." Trigger climbs into cockpit, so does Count. Their planes are painted with a new emblem: A national emblem of Erusea overlapped by a "forbidden" sign, meaning the existence of Erusea is a fundamental mistake must be corrected manually, by purging them from surface of Planet Strangereal.
"Hey you two, come back early." Avril Mead is watching they putting helmets on and strapping themselves in. "Especially you, you don't want me to hold this for too long, do you?" The Scrap Queen is holding a helmet — Mihaly A. Shilage's helmet — found when her savage team were recovering wreckages of the five X-02S Strike Wyverns of Sol Squadron. She tossed the old SOB's decapitated head into a trash can, washed the empty helmet clean, brought it back for Trigger as the trophy of the ace's triumph. There's another trophy for the conquering hero (heroine) — the Royal Seal of Erusea, discarded on the desk in Erusean royalty's office, recovered by occupation forces and given to the ace via Bandog, well, the deceased Rosa Cossette D'Elise doesn't need it anyways.
"Actually it's you to fly there to meet us with my trophy, and I'm going to give you some fresh samples for mechanical study." Trigger points Avril Mead with her right hand's index finger, from cockpit before canopy seals, and there is a subtle smile of coolness/badassness on her face.
As Trigger and Count taxi to runway, Avirl's earpiece receives a transmission from Count, private channel: "Strangely, no one ever be this caring to me."
"How 'bout some of my special 'maintenance' after you come back…correction, after I meet you there? Your place." The genus mechanician chuckles.
"Then I should tell Bandog to push us to fight harder, for concluding the fight quicker, especially Trigger."
"I don't remember him ever pushed Trigger back to days in 444th, she always makes others to eat her dust."
"Agreed. There's something about her…something we'd better not to know."
Bandog's AWACS has already taken off. He watches Trigger's customized Raptor accelerates and rockets from runway with a steep angel, breaching sound barrier in the same process, from above, then witnesses it vanishes into the endless stretch of curtain of night decorated by countless stars and shooting stars, from below. Ever since this girl got tossed into the penal unit, Bandog began to wonder her true identity, but the dossier only said "found guilty for murdering Vincent Harling in action", all other sections, except name (alias, in fact) and callsign, are censored by being blackened out. Came with the file there was a priority one order signed by Secretary of Defense Kei Nagase herself, specifically instructing to ensure Trigger's safety and to record her progress on battlefield to the slightest details. Bandog generally follows the order to the letter, and unlike Full Band, he doesn't peek into anything not supposed to be seen by others, yet he can't help to suspect the secrets behind this cold-tempered beauty with long, straight hair of raven-color.
"あなたは誰？その美しい黒い死神。" As Bandog murmurs to himself, the frame freezes as Trigger and Count's fighters blend into night sky like stars, followed by Wiseman's squadron, then zooms out and transforms its graphic effect into oil painting-like style.
【Ending Theme: Road 8】
【Extracted from Video Game "SkyRoads"】
Here comes the closure of this pilot episode. Another multi-chapter pilot episode is underway, as the prequel and sequel of this entry. It will feature developments of foremath and aftermath, new military hardware and technologies, as well as answering two questions:
Why Trigger harbors such an inveterate hatred to Erusean population, even to the extent of holocaust?
Who is Trigger?