Ace Combat: Shadow War

Chapter 23: Preparations

3rd Person POV

An F-22, X-02, Mig-29, Su-57, and F-15E tore the sky apart as they engaged in a heavy practice dogfight. Warfare inside his F-22 pushed himself to his limits as he put constant G's on himself and whenever he felt tired from the G's, he got pissed off and took a small break. Somewhat had troubles getting Remo off his tail, as the master of the Mig-29 kept getting behind him which annoyed the shit out of Somewhat but he would not give up. Zilla, Star, and Warfare fought each other in a high-G dogfight that could knock any of them at any second, Warfare pulled a high-G turn, and he felt his eyelids get heavy and his chest tightened but he kept pushing, he imagined Zilla's Strike Wyvern as D00M's Fenrir. He used that anger and past pain to stay awake and push forward but his body got the best of him and he slowed down and leveled his aircraft, he pulled the mask off his face and punched the canopy, "SHIT!" he yelled in frustration. Zilla pulled next to him, "Listen buddy you need to take it easy or else you'll pass out and crash" Warfare calmed himself and shook his head "You don't understand Zilla, when I see him I need to be better than him in every way" he said and Zilla sadly sighed, "Warfare I understand but please the last thing we need is for you to die, so let's just land and do exercises on ground" Zilla said and Warfare bowed his head and closed his eyes, he figured he could use a rest for now. "Alright fine, Outcast 1 to all aircraft halt practice dogfighting and return to base" he said, and all Outcast formed a straight single file line to land.

Warfare's POV

Climbing down from the aircraft, I was reluctant to let go of the ladder but tore my hand away from it and put all my gear away. I turned and saw all my friends relaxing or taking a drink of water, I walked over and clapsed my hand together, "Outcast were done yet... when you are all ready to move again, we will be practicing on getting to our aircraft and ready our aircraft quickly because when the day comes, we need to be quick, alright?" I said and they gave thumbs up or nods.

Once they were all ready, we started by going to our barracks and sit around then I would give them a signal and from there it was all about, running out of the barracks and to the hangar where we would check the aircraft and when we hop inside the timer stops. Right now, we were doing our 2nd try since the first try wasn't fast enough but after the first try, we all organized ourselves on what to do. I had the stopwatch in hand, and I looked at my friends doing their business, Zilla was talking with Laura, Remo was in the bathroom, Star was reading a book about aerodynamics, and Somewhat was laying in bed. The point was that they were supposed to go about their business, and I would suddenly yell 'SCRAMBLE!' to simulate the alarm that will blare when the day comes.

I looked at them and then yelled "SCRAMBLE!". Everyone jumped from what they were doing, Remo rushed out of the bathroom and tripped but quickly picked himself up and sprinted for the door. We sprinted out the door and ran for our hangar. First was the difficult part getting our stuff on quickly, the vest was the most frustrating part since there were many straps and things to readjust but after getting our stuff in under 40 seconds we moved on to our planes which was the final part, first we had check the engines and intakes to make sure nothing was inside them that would cause an interference, then we had to run around the aircraft and make sure there were no damages to the aircraft, and finally we had to climb inside the aircraft and with us all inside our jets I stopped the timer and it showed a minute and 50 seconds. "One minute and 50 seconds! we did that, great work everyone" I said, and my friends wooed at their accomplishment, this brought a smile to my face.

We did it a few more times and each time we did amazing and eventually we had to stop for the day as the sun came down ending the day. "Well, everyone I do believe that we are ready for the invasion but that doesn't mean we stop, tomorrow we go again in another practice dogfight" I said, and they all playfully groaned, and I laughed at them, "Oh stop it, get some rest everyone" I said, and they all got ready for bed. But when night fell and one by one my friends fell asleep, but I didn't, all I could think about that night was impending invasion on Megalith.

3rd Person POV (Earlier that Day)

Commander Halsey walked around the base because he wanted to see how the soldiers were doing. As he walked down to the docks that faced the vast ocean, he laid eyes on naval ships flying flags from all over the world, he even saw many aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships and to everyone's much surprise... battleships. The carriers and amphibious assault ships were the one thing they really needed if they were to invade Megalith. Halsey looked at the vast fleets of ships that would help them destroy Shadow Organization, he took a deep breath and prayed that when the invasion comes, they will be successful but if they fail then the world falls into D00Ms hands. Halsey looked around the docks he saw soldiers doing drills or getting informed of the battle again to strengthen the soldiers understanding of what their supposed to do.

Halsey looked up at the sky and saw 5 aircraft flying high into the sky, he immediately noticed them as Outcast Squadron probably doing a training exercise for the day. "Commander Halsey sir" Halsey turned his attention to a Belkan Soldier, "What can I do for you, son?" Halsey asked the fairly young soldier, "Belka flew a drone over Megalith and snapped some pictures, the pictures came back but all were distorted or blurry, this is the only clear one... and I think you should see it". The soldier handed the picture to Halsey and he saw Megalith but what was so important about it, the soldier could see the confusion in Halsey's eyes, and he assisted the commander. "Sir, you see when the pictures came through, they examined it and saw that-" the soldier then used his index finger to point out things that Halsey didn't see at first, Halsey eyes widened at seeing the it, "Megalith knows were coming, there's Anti-aircraft guns everywhere, their building fortifications all over the place, and sir if we don't do anything soon Megalith will be impenetrable and impossible to even get close to the island" the soldier finished and Halsey gave the picture back to the soldier, "Thank you son" Halsey said and the soldiers saluted and walked away leaving Halsey with heavy weight on his shoulders now. He could either gather all the admirals, generals, and whatever and talk about attacking the island today or tomorrow or he could continue to wait while Megalith is being fortified to where it will be impenetrable.