102 Silver Foxes I: The Prop Driven Drive to win

Smitten by firefly

When Ryo was on the maple Carrier in transit across the Atlantic before the kuromorimine match started he met one of the Sherman firefly commanders, Sergeant Luna "snapshot" McRae, whose great uncle was the legendary John McRae who wrote "in Flanders fields" on the Ypres salient in 1915.  The day of 102's departure, just before Ryo climbed into his spitfire, Luna ran up to him and asked him out, Ryo said yes but it would have to wait.

With a bit of downtime before the next match, Ryo took one of the 2 seat training spitfires and flew for maples carrier, upon landing he spoke to Warrant officer Julia Schultz, the commander of the maple tankery team to ask what dorm Luna was in. 

Timestamp 1732 (5:32PM)

KNOCK KNOCK

Luna: *yawn* I wonder who it is...

Luna opened the door and saw Ryo, much to her surprise

Luna: Sp- spencer?!? You actually came?!?

Ryo: of course I did, with a whole week of downtime I figured I would stop by, I have something special for you too, come to the tankery grounds with me.

Luna: o-ok

Luna: so what's the surprise?

Ryo: oh you'll see

Luna: wait, why does that plane have two se- OH!

Ryo: yes that's right, we are going for dinner in London. Go get changed and come back.

Luna ran for her dorm and got dressed, she climbed into the rear seat and settled in.

Ryo dug out the wooden flap chocks and set the flaps at half down, advanced the throttle and took to the air.

Ryo landed at London city airport and the two took the tube into central London.

30 minutes later at dinner:

Ryo- so, I've been meaning to ask, what got you into tankery?
Luna- well... it all started with my great uncle, John McRae, and I didn't like the idea of being infantry, and then I heard about the tankery program and I knew I would fit in. And here we are. How about you? How did you pick an interest in flying?

Ryo: well, it was 2007 or somethin like that when air canada flew a demo flight of their then new Boeing 777-300's and when I saw that beast fly I was hooked. I joined 102 at age 12 and joined the flying team at 14, the youngest you can be, became the squadrons highest scoring pilot and quickly rose through the ranks and becoming commander a few months before our Saunders match.

Luna: wow, that's cool

Ryo: heh yeah I guess. 

Ryo: I'm proud of my boys in both squadrons, B squadron has come a long way in precision attacks, they can actually land bombs on engine decks now.

Luna: I totally get it, I experienced it firsthand, I had a tiger in front of me last match, and a typhoon came out of nowhere and blew it to kingdom come.  We would never have made it this far without you and your squadrons help.

Ryo: I'm flattered I really am.

24 minutes later

Ryo and Luna were walking back to the tube station to go to the airport when, Maho showed up with Erika, pulled out her pistol and said: don't move.

Luna was unseen and grabbed Ryo's Webly MK VI service revolver out of his holster and ran to cover.

Maho: you've been giving us a lot of trouble lately commander Duesburry, and I think it's time we did something about it.

Ryo: what do you want

Maho: victory, and I'll do ANYTHING to get it, even if it means putting a bullet in your head.

Luna cocked the revolver, took aim and said: YOU AND WHAT GUN?

Luna fired and shot Maho's Luger right out of her hand.

Maho was so stunned that Erika had to slap some sense into her and the two ran off.

Luna: and that's why my nickname is snapshot, cause I never miss.

Ryo: I owe you one, you saved my life.

Luna handed Ryo his revolver and he put it away.

Ryo would NEVER forget what happened that night.  Before, his relationship with the kuromorimine commanders was a competitive and professional one, now it was personal hatred, hatred that would push Ryo and his plane harder then ever.