Chapter 11: Stratos Uprising

The night before the mission, the Shiratori hangar was a hushed cathedral. Tools were packed away, drone lights dimmed, the scent of ozone lingering in the stale air. Overhead, the gliders hung like sleeping hawks, gleaming with fresh calibrations.
Yuto stood alone by the White Comet, brushing his hand along its restored wings. It had been rebuilt, piece by piece, with the help of Riku, Sora, and Jun. But it was more than a machine now — it was a promise.
A promise to finish what Kaede started.
He closed his eyes, recalling every lesson. Trust the wind. Trust yourself. Remember why you fly.
Behind him, the team gathered, one by one.
Sora, balancing a stack of prototype data chips. “Signal scramblers. Should jam any Skybreaker override.”
Riku, double-checking his emergency eject harness. “No do-overs this time. If it goes wrong, you bail.”
Jun, with his weary, veteran’s eyes. “We hit Stratos Spire, we take out the AI core, then we run like hell.”
Coach Amano had tears in his eyes. “Fly high. And come back alive.”
Yuto nodded. “We will.”

---
The Final Countdown
Stratos Spire was the League’s fortress. Over 400 meters tall, armored with shielded plating, crawling with drones and security mechs. On its rooftop, the main dish antenna pulsed with red light — the nerve center of Skybreaker.
Valkyrie mapped it all out for them, cold and precise. “There’s a refueling route past its eastern arc. If you slip under the city’s main radar at exactly 2200 meters, you’ll only have a 90-second window.”
Sora whistled. “Ninety seconds? That’s insane.”
“That’s all you’ll get,” Valkyrie replied. “Use the winds.”
Jun looked at Yuto. “You ready?”
Yuto took a long, steady breath. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

---
Infiltration
Night fell hard on Neo-Tokyo. The skies were a slick ocean of black, streaked with rain and neon.
Four gliders — their wings folded like knives — launched from the top of a deserted warehouse, cutting across the skyline.
Inside their helmets, comms flared with encrypted chatter.
“Approaching target,” Riku announced.
“Altitude 2200 meters,” Sora said.
“Hold your vectors,” Valkyrie’s voice guided them from a ghost-channel. “No mistakes.”
As they approached Stratos Spire, security drones began to swarm. Spotlights stabbed the night, searching for shadows.
Yuto dropped altitude first, slipping under the drone patrol. Riku followed, then Sora, then Jun.
The wind slammed against their gliders like a tidal wave, but they rode it, adjusting pitch and throttle with absolute focus.
Kaede, Yuto thought. Watch me.

---
The Firewall
When they crossed the outer ring, the Spire’s defense network roared to life. A wall of jamming signals hit them, corrupting instruments and blinking out heads-up displays.
Sora’s voice trembled. “I’m blind! They’re scrambling us!”
“Stay on formation!” Yuto commanded. “Switch to manual!”
The team dropped their auto-assists. Suddenly they were raw pilots again, reading the currents by instinct alone.
Tracer rounds streaked past. Heavy autocannons on the Spire’s balcony opened fire, pounding shockwaves into the gliders.
Jun called out. “Dive left! Break their line of sight!”
They cut through the chaos, rolling and twisting between laser sights, every second drawing closer to the glowing red dish on the rooftop.

---
Breach
“EMP charge locked?” Yuto yelled.
Riku: “Armed!”
Sora: “Ready!”
They lined up for the final pass, diving in a synchronized maneuver that split them into four vectors.
Alarms blared. The Spire’s Skybreaker AI tried to lock them down, shooting out override signals to seize their control.
Yuto’s console flashed a red warning:
> REMOTE INTERVENTION DETECTED


For a split second, the White Comet shuddered, threatening to seize up like a dying bird.
But Yuto refused.
He heard Kaede’s voice, soft and distant, Trust the wind.
He overrode the override, rerouting power manually, and pushed the throttle forward until the nose punched through the artificial turbulence.
In unison, the team launched their EMP charges.
A split-second hush — then a blinding explosion of blue-white light swallowed the rooftop dish.

---
The Collapse
The blast wave rippled through the entire tower, overloading Skybreaker’s AI hub.
Across Neo-Tokyo, pilots flying in the League suddenly felt their controls return, the shackles cut free.
From street-level to the upper city skyways, gliders banked wildly but triumphantly as Skybreaker’s puppet strings snapped.
Inside the Spire, backup generators roared, alarms shrieked, and defense mechs tried to boot.
But it was too late.
Yuto and his team pulled up, flames and lightning at their backs, escaping the rooftop seconds before the entire structure went dark.
Below, the city watched. Cameras, drones, random citizens on their phones — everyone saw them break away from the crumbling League monument, trailing sparks like phoenixes reborn.

---
The Aftermath
They landed in an abandoned parking structure half a kilometer away, breathing hard, adrenaline still ringing in their blood.
Riku jumped out first, fist raised in triumph. “We did it!”
Sora collapsed laughing. “I thought we were dead for sure!”
Jun just sat on the glider, eyes glistening. “I… I never thought I’d see the League fall.”
Valkyrie appeared from the shadows, removing her mask.
She had tears in one mechanical eye. “Your brother would have been proud.”
Yuto stepped forward, heart pounding, lungs raw from the mission.
“This was for him. For every pilot they tried to break.”
Valkyrie nodded. “The League will regroup. You know that.”
“I know,” Yuto said. “But so will we.”

---
The Dawn
They stepped outside as the first light of morning rose over Neo-Tokyo.
The city, for the first time in decades, felt… lighter.
And up above, the sky was vast, clean, and free.
Coach Amano arrived moments later, out of breath but grinning from ear to ear. “You kids just rewrote history.”
Yuto looked up at the endless blue.
“No,” he said. “We just gave it back to everyone.”



End of Chapter 11