Ace Down

August 1st, 1943, on the outskirts of Benevolent City.

As allied forces slowly but surely closed to the city, enemy resistance only grew. Lily did not care. She flew one mission after another. She only tought of how to deal more damage to the centralian forces, how to keep herself useful and distract herself from the despair, even if for a little bit.

Now was yet another such mission, the second one that day. She was fighting a group of three «Jac-7» in an open field. They tried to gang up on her, but the pilots were clearly not very skilled and demotivated. This morning she already flew with two other wing members: Furnace and Eudokius. The second guy was pretty new, but they won the fight and killed one enemy «Jac-9» in the process.

Lily dodged yet another shot with ease and launched in the enemy direction. Instead of trying to shoot her, they just scattered. She made another loop and unleashed a barrage of icicles in the direction of the closest enemy. He barely dodged it but sustained a minor damage to his left wing. When Lily activated Acceleration and attacked the second target. This time she damaged his left engine. Still not enough to finish the aircraft, but it barely held in the air. She tried to finish him, but had to dodge fire from other two fighters. Lily turned back to them this time, they scattered in different directions and fled. «Which one should I pursue? Maybe the most damaged one», she turned again, but the fighter was already flying back to the nearby base. And his comrades were also fleeing for their life. «Eh, whatever, at least they won’t bother our forces here», and she went back to the base.

It was her fourth mission now. Lily was a bit tired, but she had no time to get bothered with it. The offence was in full swing, every pilot was crucial. She just fought another enemy patrol and shoo them away and now was flying to the new target area.

"Be careful, there are two targets hiding in the clouds nearby", it was a radar crew operator.

"Thank you, I will try to bait them now", Leitis marked the enemy position, but continued to fly like she did not notice anything.

When she got closer, she captured the enemy auras. There were indeed two machines hiding at 11 o’clock from her. When she noticed them move, she rapidly launched down-right.

Two planes appeared from the cloud: a generic «Jac-9» and the other one with familiar three stars on the side.

«It’s you again! This time I will get my revenge!», Lily was angry. She made a loop and launched in the direction of the enemy ace. He dodged to the side and tried to get behind her, but she was as fast and faced him again, a stream of ice balls launched from her side and a stream of fireballs from his. Both pilots dodged the fire, but when the second fighter appeared from behind the «three star» and tried to attack Lily. She dodged him also and looped again.

It was not that easy keeping up with two enemies at once but she had speed. They clashed again and again. The second enemy fighter recieved some minor damage but so did Lily. Suddenly, the second machine tried to change the position and get back into the clouds. «Not that fast!»,  Lily activated Acceleration, dodged another barrage from the enemy ace, and pursued the second fighter. Large ice blast have frozen its tail part and the aircraft lost control and crashed. Lily tried to turn again and get the «three-star» while the spell was still active, but when she got hit with the daze. Then enemy fire blast damaged her left wing and Lily’s craft started to lose height. She could barely keep it from crushing, attacking the enemy was not an option. If he shoots her now - it is over. «It was good while it lasted. Maybe dying now is not the worst option», Lily prepared for the inventible killing blow, but instead it was the enemy fighter who was suddenly blown up. Three large wind blades cut its wings and damaged the cockpit and the dreadful ace crushed to the ground.

Lily barely managed to land her fighter when older «Yak-1» machine landed nearby. The pilot jumped from the cabin and ran to her.

"Lily, are you unhurt?!", it was Alexis, he had a pretty tired look and a scar on his left cheek but he was alive.

"Idiot, where have you been for more than two months?! We have already buried you!", she also ran to him, stopped… and slapped him with all her might. "You know how desperate I was after everything that happened?!", and then she embraced him and kissed him on the lips.

"I will tell the whole story once we get back. So I presume it is «yes»?", Alexis tried to joke but got an angry look from Lily. "Sorry, sorry, lets get back to my fighter, there may be still enemies nearby".

"...And so, I used my Teleportation skill as the last resort. Still could not make it perfect, so I ended up in the wilderness near the WSRC border. I was seriously injured during the fight, so I barely managed to get to the nearby village before losing consciousness. I spent more than two months in a hospital. They thought I won’t recover, but I was lucky. It took a few more days to get in touch with the command to let me get back to the regiment. The news should have arrived tomorrow, but when I heard that you are flying missions nonstop today, I got worried and rightfully so. Took the car from the base I stayed in and launched to ours. There were no other spare fighters, so I had to take this one.

"But how did you shot this guy? He was pretty elusive before".

"Oh, it was simple. He never attacked more than one enemy at once because he just could not use his skill otherwise. It was possible for him to daze the opponent while avoiding his fire at the same time, but he was vulnerable to any other attacks at that moment. So the solution was simple: bait him and attack him while he is aiming someone else. It was the right move from you to shoot his partner first. «Three star» guy wanted to use him to spot any allied fighters nearby.

"So you used me as a bait? How dare you?!", but it does not seem like Lily was especially angry.

"Sorry, it was not my plan initially, but I could not miss a perfect opportunity to finish him, so I started preparing incarnation as soon as you accelerated and launched it once he shot his daze spell".

"Ok, you are forgiven. And the answer is «yes», I will go out with you. But never ever, you heard, never ever make me worry so much again!"