Wild Blue Yonder Ch.5
Reaper (aka The Ribbon) x Camilla (aka The Butterfly Master) love story.
The Ace Combat franchise does NOT belong to me. It respectfully belongs to Namco Bandai and Project Aces. The plot in this Fanfiction is obviously non-canon and was written by me.
READ THE PREQUEL FIRST! (Title: Stargazing)
In this story, I'll be making it like what I think will happen when the story of Ace Combat Infinity continues. Except I added ReaperxCamilla in it. Also, I'm not sure about the real names of most of the characters (Omega, Viper, Reaper, etc.) So I'll keep using their callsigns instead. Hope you don't mind.
Note: Errors might be seen because of auto correct.
Chapter 5: Keeping It To Yourself.
Trying not to spill the beans is vital to this situation.
-(Dubai, United Arab Emirates)-
(Reaper's POV)
After Goodfellow has finished giving all of us a debrief, Omega and I decided to head out to Dubai by train along with Edge, since she was interested in exploring the city with us. After the liberation of Kuwait, Goodfellow along with the bosses decided make us take the day off after coming with a conclusion that we will no longer be needed in sortie after the arrival of one of our fleets with the USS Essex until around three days. Makes me wonder why we could've just gotten the day off for the next three days. But taking only one day seems understandable, since USEA is known to pull unpredictable tricks on us. But then, I had to stop thinking about it as the train stopped, making Omega almost land on another person in his seat.
Me, Omega, and Edge went out of the train only to feel the blast of dry and hot air from the strong heat and glare of the desert. A painful 95-104 degrees fahrenheit (35-40 degrees celsius) felt like my skin turned instantly dry. It was like I was already dehydrated and was on the verge of falling apart.
"Bloody hell! How do people get over this kind of weather?!" Omega shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun.
"I would definitely live here if the weather wasn't always this hot." Edge sighed while staying in the shade.
"We've been in the UAE for a week. I thought you guys would be used to it already." I chuckled. "What do you guys want to eat?" I asked while staying in the shade too. "Pick one quickly. This is probably the hottest weather today and I'm not going to last long."
"Anyplace that serves food while it's cold enough to freeze my sweat in a second." Omega walked down, trying his best to ignore the powerful heat.
I took out my cellphone to search for any food place. I was more desperate to find the inside of a cold restaurant than what they serve. After finding a closer place to go, which was a popular Japanese food restaurant, we headed inside when we were blasted with the AC, which made the three of us sigh in relief. We told the hostess to give us a table with three seats as she led us to one, and we sat down. We began to start picking our orders after we ordered glasses of water for our beverages. However, Omega ordered tea afterwards.
"I haven't had Japanese food ever since I was still teaching Reaper on his first mission above Tokyo." Omega said.
"Strange. I thought I was the one teaching you not to crash." I teased him with a smirk.
"Belt up!" He chuckled.
Edge stayed silent as she focused on her glass of water, having a tense expression on her face as if she was thinking about something.
"Oi! Edge." Omega interrupted her. "You feeling okay?"
"I'm fine." She responded as she stopped playing with her glass. "It's just…I've been thinking about that fight we had with Butterfly Master."
"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow.
"I just realized something. If the Butterfly Master came down to take you out," She said to me, "why didn't he just engage you immediately rather than letting the UAVs handle it."
"Yeah." Omega nodded. "Normally he would try to shoot you down as quickly as possible. But in this fight, he didn't even try to take you out."
Ignoring the fact they don't know the Butterfly Master is actually a 'she' instead of a 'he', I was growing a bit uncomfortable as if I was being interrogated by them, like they knew I was hiding something. I didn't want them to find out about Camilla, since that will cause some complications between us and the situation. I could see why Camilla refused to use direct action to damage my craft. Because she was too scared to harm or shoot me down, knowing her UAVs will kill me if she doesn't. I continued to act like I didn't know anything.
"Either there was something wrong with her plane, or she was just taunting me." I shrugged.
"Her? She?" Edge asked.
"Uh…the design makes me assume a woman is controlling that thing." I covered it up.
"If the Butterfly Master is a woman, damn. She is one helluva remote pilot." Omega chuckled.
"Yeah. But not for long when the war is over." Edge sighed. "I can't wait to see him or her get severely punished for how much he or she has done." She looked away while folding her arms, clearly angry from the look on her face.
"I see you're still angry at the Butterfly Master for killing Slash so brutally above Tokyo." I said.
"Why wouldn't I be?" She huffed. "I've known Slash for five years since I joined the Air Force and became a squad member of the Ridgebacks. He was like a part of my family and he had to die because of some psychopathic pilot who got the title 'ace' by flying drones with lasers instead of facing us alone." Edge clenched her glass of water tightly, but eased down in order to avoid breaking it. "Do you even know what it's like to lose someone you've known for a long time? Especially in the military?"
"Yeah. My parents and grandfather, the one who taught me how to fly." I sighed. As for the military, she's right. I don't know what it's like. I've been with the Bone Arrows for about a year and there's nothing to compare how much that one year can beat Edge's service with Slash for five years.
"Here's your orders!" The waitress said as she handed over our food. I ordered omurice, Edge got chilled udon, and Omega got oyakodon. When she took her leave to another table, we began to eat as Omega was chowing down on his rice bowl as if he hasn't eaten for hours. Actually, this is our breakfast, so I can see why he's this hungry.
"Slow down, King Bailout." Edge said.
"What? A man has gotta eat, you know. You just don't know the brain of a pirate." Omega chuckled.
"Brain? What brain?" Edge smirked.
"Okay, that's an insult to all of us." Omega pouted.
"Yeah. Shame on you." I played along.
"Whatever." She shrugged, knowing we were joking around as well.
"So," Omega swallowed a spoonful of his food, "where do you think the UN will send us while Operation Eternal Liberation is going on?"
"My guess is maybe around Iran's harbors or Tehran. We are close by to Iran anyway." Edge made her prediction.
"For my guess," I cleared my throat, "maybe in South Korea. I mean, Tehran was already attacked by other UN forces, Moscow was already liberated thanks to another mercenary squadron, and I heard from Goodfellow that a UN invasion force is already stationed in Tokyo, which means we will either attack USEAN controlled South Korea or China."
"True." Edge nodded. "When I hear 'invasion force', I know it's going to be a busy day for the UN. No doubt we'll lose a lot of men and women fighting during the invasion."
"Yeah. All we can do is hope that we won't suffer too much casualties." Omega said. "Thankfully, we have Reaper to save the day in case something goes wrong."
"Thanks to the invasion from the Adriatic Sea, I already know what to do if things go bad." I gave a cocky smile.
"And what would that be?" Edge asked.
"Just blow anything up. As long as it belongs to the enemy, of course." I added.
"That's just how we roll." Omega laughed out loud, causing some attention from others.
"I'm hoping you won't always follow that old man's example too much."
"But it works." I said with a smirk.
"One of these days, your plan will backlash and make you think of another clever way of solving things."
"Just like your recklessness when dealing with other enemy aces?" I smirked even widely.
"Ha ha." She let out a sarcastic laugh.
"I love it when you two are the ones running your mouths more than me." Omega chuckled quietly while his mouth was slightly full.
"The problem is that we're miles away to catch up to the amount of words that come out of yours." I teased my wingman.
"What can I say? It's what keeps me relaxed while facing against the enemy planes."
"Well, most of them. You're still more nervous when facing against the Butterfly Master." I pointed out.
"Well, yeah. Because I have a much more higher chance of dying when facing against him…or her than another ace." He added.
"Speaking of the Butterfly Master, I'm just hoping for more answers about how did they make those drones with lasers, that modified CFA-44, and who's behind the face of that psychopath." Edge huffed as she sipped her drink.
My chest felt like it dropped for a second when she called Camilla a psychopath. She may have killed all those pilots, including Slash, but she was manipulated by Kvasir and Cohen about her game being just a…game. But in reality, it was just a cover up to make her control the QFA-44 and blindly kill UN pilots. If I said that to her, she wouldn't believe me hat easily due to her viewing me as a pilot without much knowledge of the enemy.
"This has been going on my head for a while now. What if an AI is controlling the Butterfly Master? What if he/she was programmed to kill any pilot on sight and that the main purpose of the AI was to help conquer or change the tide of battle?" Omega made a guess that was miles away from the real truth.
"Maybe." Edge shrugged, but made an expression like it was more possible than she thought.
"She's just a poor innocent girl, trapped in space…" I mumbled to myself.
"Huh? What was that?" Edge asked.
"Nothing. Just talking to myself." I shook my head.
"Yeah. Don't worry about Cap'n. Let the boss think." Omega patted my back.
After all those thoughts going through my head, I began to feel bad about Omega and Edge. Even though they're considered to be my friends and I'm proud of having them with me, I wasn't feeling okay that I was hiding a huge secret from them. I'll probably have to keep the secret about me and Camilla forever even after the war is over. But what was the worst part was how will they react if they discover my secret and demand to know why I haven't said anything. Camilla is considered the enemy, but I view her as an innocent girl trapped in space, not knowing what she has done ever since by the 'game'.
Never in my life have I been so paranoid about the situation I'm in right now. Sometimes I wish I was back into my old self when I would be happy to challenge and shoot down the Butterfly Master without a hint of remorse. But now that's gone, and now I'm dealing with something that is more difficult than this war.
What are my feelings in all of these things…?
(Finished the midterms for my college classes. Anyway, I hope this chapter was in an okay level. There was no action or anything, but just some development for Reaper and his friends. Stay tuned for the next chapter! Chapter 6 will be longer and have more action.)
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