Chapter Summary: Hitman Team hunts the Espadon, but things don't go quite as planned, leading Trigger to find himself in a strange situation.
"Are you trying to get us killed?" A panicked Prez nearly shouted at her pilot. "That's a fucking airship, Trigger! We're in a Tomcat! We're gonna get turned into ground beef, dumbass!"
"Trust me on this…Airships aren't all they're cracked up to be," Trigger said with a grin, glancing up at the Littoria's escorts.
"Holy fuck," Diplomat breathed. "They actually sent an airship to intercept us? What're they so afraid of?"
"Logical deduction says it's us," Comic said wryly. "Now buckle up; Trigger may be eager today, but he's certainly not taking that thing down on his own."
"Hey, Nemo. You seem to have an awful lot of useful knowledge…How much do you know about that thing, exactly?" He muttered under his breath.
Subject is designated "Espadon," a Mark 1 Littoria-class airship.
Subject is armed with three SAM launchers, one CIWS gun, and three anti-aircraft guns.
"…Got it. And, uh…thanks…?"
He felt a little weird actually thanking the AI for once. His grin returned, however, as he approached the Espadon.
"They've spotted us!" Prez called as the airship's guns turned towards them, beginning to open fire. Just as they did, Trigger banked sharply, managing to avoid the line of fire. His body protested just a bit from the forces involved, but he managed to stay steady long enough to let loose a pair of missiles towards the airship's engines, hoping to take the thing down quickly.
"Hitman Four, Fox two!" He crowed.
To his dismay, however, while he was able to avoid the stream of gunfire, the missiles he'd fired were not. They burst in midair, torn apart easily by the airship's guns.
"Shit," Trigger cursed. "C'mon, there's gotta be a blind spot somewhere!" He swung the Tomcat around, flitting about just outside of the airship's gun range as he looked for an opening.
"Trigger, what the hell are you doing?" Monarch asked.
"Making a statement," Trigger replied.
A sigh crackled into his ears. "If that's what you're trying to do, you're going about it all wrong…why the hell are you trying to hit that thing from behind?"
Trigger blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Modern airships tend to be most vulnerable from above or below; their defensive guns have difficulty hitting things at extreme angles." Monarch explained. "Trying to hit them from behind or head-on is a waste of ammunition; it just makes it easier for their AA fire to hit you."
Information logged as relevant to current task. Observation: Monarch appears to be knowledgeable about strategies concerning modern Usean aircraft. Listening to him may be valuable.
As he watched, Monarch's jet dove down below the airship, before firing a single missile at one of its guns. This time, it actually slipped through the wall of lead, smashing into the gun and rendering it useless.
However, it seemed Monarch had spotted more interesting prey—one of the Delphini had swooped just a little too close, and Monarch began to pursue it.
"Just be careful when you wail on that thing—you'll be exposing yourself to their SAMs by doing this. That goes for you UPEO kiddos, too," Monarch grumbled. "Be smart about how you engage these things."
Trigger smiled just a bit. At least Hitman's leader knew how to make a half-decent plan; though he knew plans rarely survived the battle.
"R-Right…" Fiona mumbled over the radio.
"I see…" Trigger narrowed his eyes a bit. Apparently dealing with these new machines would be a bit different from an Arsenal Bird—getting behind the big bird and taking out its propellers had been the main goal back then, as he recalled.
"Oi, Comic, Dip," Trigger called.
"Yeah? What's up?" The two asked, almost in unison.
"Jinx," Comic snickered, as her partner cursed under his breath.
"I'm gonna go up top and see what I can do. What do you say to handling the bottom side, so we can make a little airship sandwich?" Trigger joked.
Dip laughed. "Not a bad idea, even if it's coming from the new guy." Dip began to…well, dip down towards the Espadon's underbelly, and Comic followed.
"Prez, I'm gonna need you to handle the multilocks on my mark," Trigger said. "Can I trust you to do that?"
In response, Prez just groaned in the backseat as the 'Cat climbed up above the Espadon.
Trigger watched out of the corner of his eye as the number on the altimeter rose higher and higher. Finally, when he felt like he had enough distance, he pounced.
"Now!" He shouted as soon as he was able to lock onto the airship's weapons. He felt a slight thunk as Prez set free four of the multilocks.
"Fox Three—shit!" Prez cried as missile alerts began to blare.
Trigger rolled out of the way, popping flares just in time to avoid a pair of incoming missiles from the flying giant. Apparently Monarch's heads-up was right.
As he swung back around, he was able to see two of the missiles hit their mark—one hitting a SAM, and the other managing to smash into an AA gun.
"Sweet. One SAM and one AA down—dammit!" He cursed as the alarms screeched again. This time, however, it didn't come from the ship. Instead, the second Delphinus had decided to make itself known. He saw the missile fly by as he hit a sharp turn, but he wasn't out of the woods.
Trigger had experience on his side, but the aging Tomcat simply couldn't outmaneuver the advanced fighter. As a second missile approached, Trigger knew he had no chance of dodging it. Old instincts kicking in, he made a snap decision, angling the jet such that it would hopefully avoid damage to anything vital.
"Brace for impact!" he shouted to Prez, before the entire plane was rocked by an explosion. Looking back, he could see that a chuck of their left tailfin was missing, though they remained in the air.
"…H-how are we not dead?" Prez panted, wide-eyed. "That definitely should've knocked us out of the sky…"
"It's…a trick I learned a long time ago from an old man," Trigger said vaguely. "We're not out of the woods yet, though…!"
He pulled the machine into a dive and booked it, knowing he'd need to gain as much momentum as possible if they were going to survive this.
Nemo seemed to consider this. Interesting. This technique was previously unknown to me. Updating records…
"We need some help over here!" Trigger shouted as the Delphinus pursued them.
"On it!" A voice called out. Suddenly, the warnings ceased.
He looked back to see Erich and Fiona harassing the Delphinus. Though the Neucom jet was newer, the two had the advantage of numbers, and seemed to work together well as a team—whenever their foe tried to move to handle one of them, the other was already right behind it.
Finally able to breathe, Trigger pulled around to help them out, but found that the deed was done before he could even reach them—a stream of gunfire from Fiona ripped deep into the poor thing's engines, which sputtered for a few moments before finally going up in flames.
He winced a bit as he heard screaming from Nemo's audio feed.
Is something wrong, Father?
"I'm fine…" He mutters.
"You don't look fine," Fiona calls over the radio. "You've lost half your tailfin! Although I'm surprised that missile did so little, given the circumstances…"
Trigger's mind went blank for a moment. Had he left the radio on?
A quick look confirmed it. A bit of panic rose in his chest—luckily, Fiona seemed to think he'd been talking about the condition of the Tomcat, but he needed to make sure not to do that again.
"W-we, er, took it in a non-critical area," Trigger explained. "Tell you what—if we all make it back in one piece, I'll show you how to do that."
"Really?" The young Peacekeeper asked.
"I, uh…yeah. I-I mean, we're supposed to be working together anyways, so…y'know." He finally shut off his radio to escape the awkward conversation.
Prez, despite the stress of the situation, laughed a little bit in the back.
"…What?" He asked.
"Oh, nothing. It's just…" She snickered again. "You sounded like a tired dad."
"I am tired," Trigger sighed.
"And a dad," she joked.
He sat in moderately-annoyed silence for a few moments, watching as the two UPEO kids flew past. Then he turned his attention back to the airship.
Comic and Dip had done an excellent job of destroying the weapons on the bottom, as it turned out. Smoke could clearly be seen curling up from underneath the Littoria-class.
He smirked. With the first Delphinus downed and the second distracted by Monarch, he had a clear shot at the remaining weapons—a SAM, an AA gun, and the CWIS unit on its nose.
Once more, he fell upon the beast. Prez seemed to know exactly what he wanted, launching everything they had just as he was opening his mouth. Four multilocks and two regular missiles streaked towards their targets.
Though the guns managed to strike down two of the missiles, its valiant effort wasn't enough—the barrage broke through regardless.
Trigger high-fived his WSO as a trio of explosions bloomed on top of the airship, before doing a lazy aileron roll in celebration.
"Not bad for a museum piece, eh?" He laughed.
"Not bad at all! Even if things got a bit dicey back there…" Prez agreed.
The Espadon was still in the air, but without its weapons, the airship was helpless to defend itself. Its only hope was the second Delphinus.
…Where had it gone, anyways?
"Hey, Monarch!" Trigger turned the radio back on. "How's it coming with that last one?"
A grunt. "I'm handling it…bastard's not making it easy for me, though. These things are slippery as all hell."
Trigger watched as Monarch came into view, followed shortly by the remaining Delphinus. The two twisted and turned around each other, and eventually Trigger realized their crazed dance was leading them towards the wings of the airship.
The Littoria-class featured an interesting wing design—two wings extending from the body that fused together at the ends to form something like a squished ring.
"Wait—oh my god, is he gonna…?" Prez trailed off.
Trigger looked back at her for a moment, before realizing what she meant. Oh shit, was he—?
His fears were confirmed as Monarch angled himself to fly straight through the airhsip's wings.
Panic rose in his chest, and a growing, throbbing pain dilled itself into his head. He tried to calm down—Monarch was a damn good pilot, maybe better than he was. Surely he wouldn't—
Father, the Espadon's trajectory is changing!
Trigger froze as he realized Nemo was right. The Espadon had curved downwards—if Monarch didn't pull down along with it, he was going to crash into the wings!
Trigger tried to open his mouth, but the pain pressed in on him until his head felt like it was going to explode.
He could hear voices, but through the pain none of it made any sense.
Sentences collapsed into their constituent words, words broke down into syllables, syllables were washed away in a stream of fire until it became nothing but white noise make it stop
His vision blurred with red haze as his body moved on its own. Was he screaming?
Nemo…help…
—CONNECTED—
He wasn't in the plane anymore.
H̴a̸h̴…̵a̸h̵a̷h̵a̷h̷a̵h̶a̶!̷
No, that was wrong. He was still in a plane, but not the plane, something everything was wrong, he couldn't feel his body where was the cockpit where were his arms
I̶ ̶u̶p̸ ̶'̸n̵ ̴g̵o̴t̴ ̵s̶t̸u̵c̵k̸!̸ ̶A̴i̶n̵'̸t̵ ̶t̴h̵a̸t̷ ̴f̸u̵n̴n̴y̶?̶!̷ ̷
…That wasn't important. What was important was what lay ahead of him, through the red haze. A looming, ominous black aircraft with a bi-wing design…
…̸T̸h̵a̸t̷'̵s̷ ̴j̷u̷s̷t̴ ̸l̷i̴k̴e̴ ̵m̷e̷,̴ ̸h̶u̷h̸?̷ ̸H̵e̵y̷,̴ ̸c̸a̷n̷ ̸y̶o̷u̷ ̷h̵e̷a̴r̷ ̴m̸e̸.̶ ̷.̵ ̴.̷ ̸b̸u̴d̴d̷y̷?̸
…and a smaller plane caught within its wings.
I̶'̴l̸l̷ ̵l̴e̴t̴ ̶y̴o̴u̵ ̴t̸a̶k̴e̶ ̴c̸a̷r̸e̷ ̴o̵f̴ ̵D̶i̷s̸i̸o̴n̴.̵ ̸
This was his only chance to…do what? Shoot it down?
T̵a̵r̷g̷e̷t̶ ̷m̶e̸.̶ ̶Y̵o̵u̴ ̴s̵h̷o̷u̵l̷d̶ ̵b̶e̸ ̵a̴b̸l̴e̵ ̴t̵o̸ ̵g̵e̵t̸ ̷a̷ ̶l̶o̵c̶k̷ ̸o̸n̵ ̷t̷h̵i̴s̵ ̷m̵o̴n̸s̷t̸e̸r̵ ̵n̷o̸w̸!̸ ̵
As if compelled by some force, he found himself locking onto the smaller jet.
D̵o̶ ̷i̶t̸ ̸q̷u̸i̷c̴k̸l̵y̸,̷ ̶d̵a̸m̷m̵i̵t̴!̵
He pulled the trigger.
.̸ ̴.̵ ̷.̴ ̵
B̴u̸d̵d̵y̶.̶
I̶'̷l̷l̴ ̶s̶e̴e̶ ̷y̴a̵ ̵l̵a̵t̷e̴r̵.̴
—DISCONNECTED—
Trigger blinked a few times as the pain slowly died down, and he regained control of his body. He twitched occasionally—every nerve and muscle in his body felt like it had been stretched to its limit.
He gasped for air a few times, shuddering as he desperately tried to think.
Where was he? What was happening? He looked around at his surroundings. He was in…the Tomcat.
The one Monarch had lended him.
Monarch.
And once again, his train of thought fell apart from the spike of panic that was driven through him, forcing him to scramble to pick up the pieces.
"…Monarch..." He managed to croak out, before something tapped on his shoulder.
He whipped around, expecting an attack (but from what?)…
…and came face-to-face with a horrified-looking Prez.
He just stared for a moment, his gasping breaths slowing down to something more normal.
"Is…is Monarch…?" He began.
"He's fine," she replied. "Nemo was…able to get the message out in time." She pointed past him, and he followed her gaze to where Monarch flew high in the air.
However, the same couldn't be said of the Delphinus. It was lodged in-between the wings of the airship…which was now beginning to drop from the sky, interspersed with bursts of red-orange flame as the aircraft finally gave out.
A few lifeboats managed to escape before it crashed to the ground, going up in one last fiery explosion.
Trigger sagged with relief.
"How long was I…?"
"A minute, give or take," she confirmed. "Nemo kept us from nosediving, thank the gods, but…" she shudders. "He barely managed to turn the radio off before you started screaming. What the hell happened?"
"I don't…know," he admits. "When I saw where Monarch was going, I was…My head was…" He slumped a bit to the side. "…it felt like someone teleported my head into the Sun."
She gave him a worried look. "Can you still fly?"
He nodded. "I think I'll be okay." Of course, he wasn't really sure of this at all.
A hand on his shoulder. "Don't try anything flashy. Just get us to the new base and land safely, alright?"
"Yeah…that's probably for the best." He relaxed just a bit at the touch—he didn't usually enjoy contact, but at this point he'd take anything to take his mind off of the echoes of lightning that still seemed to be bouncing around in his veins, to feel like he was a person again.
As he gathered his wits, he turned on the radio, listening in. It seemed like he'd caught the end of the conversation.
"…By midnight's light," Kaiser was saying.
"Confirmed," another voice announced—Erich, he was pretty sure the kid was called. "Welcome to UPEO, then. Follow us; we'll show you where the landing strip is."
As Trigger staggered out of the Tomcat, he couldn't help but notice that his legs felt remarkably like jelly—even the one that was most definitely made out of metal and polymer. If it were up to him, he'd just lay down on the floor and sleep for five days.
Alas, he had to keep up appearances. He'd fumbled with the ladder for nearly a minute before giving up and letting Prez help him down.
Even after that, though, he wasn't quite out of the woods. His body shook badly, and he was occasionally slammed with waves of dizziness—he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to stand up for.
He was reminded of Ymir's warning that Nemo's primary power source was his blood sugar. He had a hunch that whatever had happened earlier had required quite a lot of power...and might be related to why he was being so silent now.
The AI actually hadn't said much at all since whatever hallucination he'd just suffered, offering little more than a simple "Affirmative" or "Negative" as needed. Trigger wasn't sure if it was an effort to conserve energy or if he was trying to "hide" somehow, despite being confined to Trigger's head.
After a short, whispered conversation, Prez had told him to sit down as soon as they entered a small lobby. And now they were…waiting, presumably while SARF gave a debriefing. Comic and Dip had wandered off to the bathroom, and Prez had quietly gone off in search of something reasonably sugary for him.
He looked over at his flight lead, and immediately regretted it.
Mainly because Monarch was boring a hole into the side of his head with a very pointed stare.
"…I didn't get the chance to thank you," Hitman Team's leader began.
"Thank me?" Trigger parroted. At this point, he was too mentally drained to think straight.
"Yeah. For warning me. I just barely clipped the edge of that thing's wing as I went through…if I'd been going in at a higher angle, I probably would've been killed."
Trigger let out a puff of air at his leader's attempt to ease the tension. "Y-yeah, I saw you going in and I just…did some mental math, kind of?" He omitted the "superadvanced AI stuck in his head" part, but it wasn't a lie.
"Hm. You must be pretty eagle-eyed to be able to catch that, not to mention a quick thinker. Wouldn't be the first time your quick thinking saved my ass, actually. There was that incident with the cordium, too…"
Monarch scratched his chin. "How did you even know about that, anyways?"
Trigger avoided eye contact even more than usual. "I-It was sort of…a hunch? I've, er, had to deal with cordium shipments before, and they kind of looked similar," he managed to stammer out. "I was working a lot of odd jobs after I left the Peacekeepers…"
Monarch didn't quite look convinced, but seemingly decided not to press the issue any further.
"Well, given you're two for two at this rate…if you have any more of these 'hunches,' I'd suggest making them known to the group at the earliest opportunity," Monarch suggested. "Would certainly make things a heck of a lot easier to plan around."
"I, uh…y-yeah. I'll try to do that, then," Trigger agreed.
There was a few moments of beautiful, peaceful silence.
"Also…after this, we really need to talk about getting you something better to fly. Your performance was incredibly impressive given what you're working with, but…" He sighs. "As much as I love that old thing, I can tell it's not gonna be up to the task for very long, especially in the landscape of Usea. It's about time she retired, either to a museum or a collection. So…pretty much the second we have the chance, we need to look into getting you something better."
Trigger gave his flight lead a quizzical look. "Can we do that? I mean, surely you can't just walk up to some store and go 'hey, yeah, I'd like to order a Raptor with a side of Flankers.'"
Monarch actually snorted at that one. "Ah, that's right. You weren't a merc before this, so you wouldn't know. The places I'm thinking of are…fairly underground, if you know what I mean. And if all else fails, I…know an old lady who'll help us out."
Trigger almost didn't catch Monarch wincing as he mentioned the "old lady." What the hell that was supposed to mean, he wasn't sure, but he attention was quickly swept away by Prez walking into the room.
Well, more specifically, his attention was stolen by the packet of fruit snacks in her hand, but hey, who was counting?
She tossed it towards him, and though he tried to catch it, his coordination was…still not very good, so it ended up hitting him in the face. On the bright side, though, he now had the fruit snacks. He greedily tore into them, not really giving a damn about Monarch's disapproving stare…or about Comic, Dip, or Kaiser, who'd just walked back in.
He needed sugar, dammit.
He did, however, have the decency to wave Prez a little "thank-you," shove the empty wrapper in his pocket, and stand at attention when SARF's commander strode in, along with the members themselves.
And…boy, did they all look depressingly young. He'd barely been 21 when the Lighthouse War started, and he'd been seen as an outlier.
These kids looked to be about the same age, if not younger.
He tried not to let the sickening feeling in his stomach get to him, instead turning his head to their commander—a positively slimy-looking man who he recalled being named Gilbert Park, at least according to the files he'd been given before they left.
Park spared each one of the mercenaries a glance. His eyes narrowed just slightly as they passed over Trigger.
"Looks like the snowy-haired one has some manners, but the rest could use work..." Park muttered under his breath just loudly enough that everyone could hear it, before shrugging. "So, you're the mercenaries? Sicario, or some such?"
"That'd be us," Kaiser agreed, leaning against a wall. "Well, you must have wanted us to wait here for some reason. So go on, and don't take up too much of our time—my men are tired, in case you couldn't notice."
"Ah, yes. Of course," Park smiled, and it took physical effort on Trigger's part not to flinch backwards.
"Well, to put it quite simply, we were quite impressed by your performance out there, especially given the...hardware disparity some of you faced." The smile broke into a demonic grin.
"I believe UPEO has much to gain from working with you…and that your services would be best used working and training with SARF, one of our premier peacekeeping teams." He gestured to the group of pilots, who were little more than children.
Kaiser fired a shark-like grin right back, apparently not intimidated in the slightest. "Really? Well, now you've got my attention."
A/N #2:
Apologies for how long this took to come out. I was struggling quite a bit with classes last month, and really didn't have the time to put out a chapter then.
...BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
As a little apology for last month's schedule blip (and because I've got some more experimental ideas running around in circles inside my head)...later this month, or the first week of next month, I'll give you folks a little Bonus Chapter™!
It'll probably mostly just be fluff, taking place sometime between Chapters 8 and 9, but I hope you'll enjoy it regardless.
Also, I'll try to get around to responding to comments on here, though I'm not as active on FFN as I am on AO3.
EDIT: Since FFN's comments and replies are kind of weird, from now on, I'll be replying to comments and questions after the end notes, so here goes!
Malgrath: My personal headcanon was that Simon never really coded Nemo with a specific gender in mind-instead, Nemo develops a sense of identity based partially on their experiences in the simulations, as well as whoever's data they use as a model. So since Trigger is Nemo's model, Nemo ends up incorporating parts of how Trigger acts, thinks, and understands himself...including his gender. So for example, in an alternate universe where Trigger is female, Nemo would also gravitate towards a female personality.
VLF: I'm glad you're having as much fun reading this as I'm having writing it! :D
Dariory: Trigger's definitely recovering, slowly but surely. And I have plenty of very fun ideas for how characters from both AC3 and previous AC games will fit into this story, so stay tuned! ^^