//------------------------------// // Pilot // Story: Akula in equestria // by cicakterbang91 //------------------------------// He has failed. He knew it. From the split second before his adversary’s missile struck his aircraft’s tail, Colonel Andrei Markov knew that he has failed. Moments before, his PAK-FA’s radar had been screaming, warning him of an incoming missile, yet he was too focused on his target to realize that his aircraft had run out of flares to deflect the missile. When he timed the missile to get close enough to be affected by the flares, he pushed the button that would jettison the decoy flares only to be answered, to his horror, by his flight HUD (Heads-up Display) telling him that he has run out of flares. He pressed another button, only this time, frantically and repeatedly following a stream of curses, hoping that it would fire his “special” weapon at his target; a cruise missile with a deadly payload. But his weapon was never fired. All the while, screams of “missile alert” spoken in Russian has been assaulting his ears. There was nothing more he could do but wait for the inevitable as the missile struck. Small pockets of memories flashed before his eyes. ----- He calmly walked up to the podium on the stage. His uniform was clean and neatly pressed, and rightly so, for today, he had to look his best. Below the stage to his right, he could see hundreds of his fellow pilots, most of them did not out-rank him, standing in formation, facing the stage. To his left, a group of what looks to be, from the way that they dressed, high ranking men seated upon chairs that look like they were made for the Tsars themselves. Behind the seated men, was a banner with his face on it and his name, Andrei Markov, written in Cyrillic. Literally nothing made a sound. Not even his own footsteps. During this flashback, he can only see but not hear. His attention suddenly zoomed upon a face that seemed, somehow, oddly familiar to him among those who were seated on the stage. He couldn’t put this feeling into words. He doesn’t remember that man in any memories prior to that day but somehow, he is able to recognize him in some way. Suddenly, it dawned on him. During that day, he would think nothing of that face, just another high ranking officer among the group of several others but during this flashback he recognized him as the man who would be known in the present day as the late General Stagleishov. His attention didn’t linger upon that face for long, however. It shifted to the man who was standing behind the podium he was walking up to. The man smiled as he approached. He sees himself in first-person shaking the man’s hand and standing at attention as the man places a medal on his chest. The medal looked like two thin oblong rings tied together vertically by a short sash that is striped respectively white, blue and red from left to right. A golden five-pointed star hung below the lower ring. He gave a salute to the man after receiving the medal and the man saluted back. This was a very important day for him because it was the day he received the title "Geroy Rossiyskoy Federatsii”. Hero of the Russian Federation ----- The impact from the missile caused his aircraft to spin and rotate violently in the sky. ----- He was marching down a corridor with two men in tow. All three were armed with pistols. There were no guards posted at the door which made it all the more easier for them. As with the previous flashback, he could only see, but not hear. All other senses are just memories from the time. When he heard the news that General Stagleishov was willing to surrender the last of their “special” weapon in order to negotiate a clean surrender, he knew he had to stop it. It was not difficult to find soldiers who, as the Americans would put it, have had their jimmies rustled over the news to join him into putting a stop to the surrender. He approached the building where the good General’s office resides with a fairly large group of soldiers trailing behind him. There were three guards posted at the entrance but luckily for Markov, they also wanted to put a stop to the General’s stupidity. The guards advised that a large number of soldiers entering the building together might spook the General into hiding. After much debating, it was decided that only three were allowed into the building while the rest waited outside. Markov was the first choice since he outranks every single soldier who was present at the time. As for the second and third choice, were two of the high ranking soldiers. After arming themselves, they marched into the building. When the three finally reached the door, they equipped their pistols and assembled themselves into a breaching position. After a silent three-count, Markov kicked open the door and fired a single shot at the room’s lone occupant. General Stagleishov had already armed himself with his own side-arm when he heard the door slam open but was too late to defend himself when one of the intruders shot him in the chest. It wasn’t a fatal shot but the pain from it caused him to drop to the floor. He looked up at the intruders and saw that it was none other than three of his own men, all training their weapons at him. Markov could almost hear the shot that he fired that day. He could almost feel himself pull the trigger. He watched as General Stagleishov dropped to the ground after the bullet hit and the blood that pooled on the carpet. Apparently, General Stagleishov didn’t have enough sense to wear body armor at the time. He was about to think that he wouldn’t be able to hear himself taunt the General but to his surprise, he could hear himself say: “Giving up so soon, General?” It was a strange sensation. He knew he spoke those exact words but it felt as if it was spoken by someone else using his voice. He watched as General Stagleishov’s mouth open and close to form words, yet he could hear nothing. After that, his voice came again: “Your coup means nothing”. He watched as his body walked up to the General’s prone form and knelt on one knee. His voice came again without missing a beat: “This is about revenge”. He stood up and delivered a coup-de-grace, a killing shot to finish off the General once and for all. ----- Time seemed to slow down for him as his aircraft twisted out of control in the sky. During this almost miraculous lapse in the perception of time, he was able to see another aircraft slowly (in real time, it would be a lot faster) approaching his own. He knew who it was behind the cockpit of that aircraft. The pilot was another Ace, his equal, his rival, his adversary and the man who had just bested him. Lieutenant Colonel William Bishop, the leader of Warwolf squadron. Machine gun fire began to chew through his aircraft. ----- He first heard of Colonel Bishop during a mission briefing by General Stagleishov. At the time, he had just finished painting the shark mouth design on the nose of his Su-35BM, earning him the nickname “Akula” or shark in Russian. It was also during that briefing that the General unveiled a new type of weapon, one that has the explosive capabilities of a nuclear warhead but does not leave the target area inhospitable for 1000 years. With a weapon like that on hand, General Stagleishov and several others planned to overthrow the current Russian government, replacing it with something called “The New Russian Federation” He’s now behind the cockpit of his Su-35BM. Stretching for miles below him is the city of Carruth and before him, a mess of fighter jets shooting each other down. He remembers this day as the day he first tested Colonel Bishop’s skill. He sees himself enter the fray after the last of Big Bear squadron was shot down by the NATO jets and Warwolf squadron. He started off by harassing the Colonel’s wingman, Captain Gutierrez. As Colonel Bishop came to his wingman’s aid, Markov, now Akula as he was called whenever he was in the sky, pulled a maneuver called the “Pugachev’s Cobra” that switched the position of his aircraft, previously in front of Colonel Bishop’s, to one that’s directly behind the American Ace. Colonel Bishop’s aircraft was then at his mercy and would have been finished off right then and there had Akula’s own wingman warned him that his aircraft was low on fuel. Just as he was leaving the battlefield, he was able to witness with his own two eyes, the full devastating effect of General Stagleishov’s new weapon, codename: Trinity. Just as it was stated during the mission briefing, the explosion looked, at first, as a ball of light for a second before exploding into a mushroom cloud similar to a nuclear explosion as it ripped and tore through Carruth, turning it from a small city into a large parking lot. His second encounter with Colonel Bishop was from a distance after Warwolf squadron had successfully aided an amphibious assault by Tyuleni units to recapture a fortress in Derbent that was held by NRF (New Russian Federation) forces. He was ordered to launch a cruise missile armed with a Trinity warhead at the fortress and leave, which he did. What he did not expect, however, was for the cruise missile to be shot out of the sky and explode outside of the target area. Apparently, the American Ace was much more skilled than he had given him credit for His third encounter with the Warwolf squadron leader was in the skies over Moscow where a massive war was being fought on the ground and in the air between NRF forces and loyalist Russians aided by Task Force 108 and Warwolf squadron. At the time, Akula was tasked to escort a bomber that was carrying a large Trinity warhead. In order to avoid radar detection, Akula and a few other escorts; along with the bomber in question, were flying at low altitudes. The very minute they were detected, the other escorts were immediately hounded and torn apart by Warwolf squadron. Akula himself had no trouble fending off some of the fighter jets from attacking the bomber but somehow, during the chaos, Colonel Bishop was able to shoot down the bomber. Akula then decided to engage in aerial combat with the American Ace as the Trinity warhead detonated in a secondary explosion after the bomber was shot down. He didn’t remember how long the ensuing dogfight was, with both Aces desperately out-maneuvering each other in the air. He did remember the fact that he lost this battle. As he was preparing for a maneuver that would switch the positions of the two aircrafts, his adversary’s machine gun managed to rupture his fuel line and damage his flight control. Luckily, he was able to eject but not before warning Colonel Bishop that this wasn’t over. During his descent, he overheard through his radio, which he patched into Warwolf’s frequency, that General Stagleishov was willing to surrender the last of the Trinity bombs in order to negotiate a peaceful surrender. He landed near a large group of NRF ground units and after picking himself up off the ground, he told the ground units about what he overheard about General Stagleishov’s new plan. They decided to retreat back to base to make sure that it didn’t happen. His fourth encounter was in the skies over Miami, Florida. After killing General Stagleishov, Markov’s wingman, Major Sergei Illich, managed to secure the last Trinity warhead in addition to two PAK-FA aircrafts. He armed the final Trinity warhead in a cruise missile and after adding a shark mouth motif to the PAK-FA’s nose, he was ready to fly again as Akula. Major Illich has also secured several locations within the United States to be used as checkpoints for refueling. With the remaining NRF soldiers at his command, he planned to launch the Trinity warhead into the White House but to get to his destination he first had to go through Miami airspace. After a massive aerial assault over Miami, Warwolf squadron, in addition to Tiger and Coyote squadron, managed to drive back most of the NRF fighters but had suffered heavy losses and damages on their own end as well. That was when Akula decided to strike. He had Colonel Bishop’s aircraft locked in his sights and after accelerating from a fairly large distance, he launched a quick air-to-air missile at the aircraft that would have finished the American Ace once and for all had his wingman, Captain Gutierrez not taken the missile to save him. Akula then proceeded to harass the other American fighters, taking potshots and deftly out-maneuvering them in the air before returning his attention to Colonel Bishop. From a distance, their two aircrafts were facing each other, at this moment he can hear Colonel Bishop’s voice saying: “Markov!” He acknowledged the American Ace and replied through his radio, hearing his voice once again: “Bishop”. The two Aces then engaged in a head-on combat where machine gun bullets were traded with missile fire until they passed each other. Neither Aces were able to press the attack because for the American, his adversary had flown too far and his aircraft was low on fuel. As for the Russian, he had to leave fast because his adversary’s allies were about to close in on him and the head-on combat had damaged the cruise missile under his wing. He had to fix that. He contacted his allies on the ground, asking them to relay coordinates to the nearest checkpoint and headed straight there. While on the ground, he was greeted with more bad news. It appeared that no one in his employ knew how to fix the cruise missile. Markov suggested replacing the warhead into another missile but the missile he had on hand was so badly damaged that the mechanics feared the warhead could not be removed without a high risk of detonating on the spot. Fortunately, the homing mechanism in the missile still works. He was warned that any number of malfunctions might happen when he tries to launch it but given the circumstances, he had no choice. He was still in Miami when he encountered Colonel Bishop for the fifth time. Akula was heading deeper into the States with Major Illich, both of them flying their coveted PAK-FAs, and a fair number of NRF fighters in tow. He was hoping that there would be no American aircrafts to impede their journey since their flight path led them directly into a hurricane but as fate would have it, they were hounded by a squadron of fighter jets led by the American Ace. In groups, the NRF fighters broke off to distract the Americans and buy their leader more time to escape but they were systematically shot out of the sky by the American fighters while Colonel Bishop kept the pursuit. In the end, Major Illich was forced to break off the formation himself to distract the Americans in order for Akula to escape. It was the last time he saw of his wingman ever again. The rest of the NRF air force had already made a mess of the American ground and air force when Akula arrived in Washington D. C. It was here that he intended to exact his revenge on the United States for what they had done, for his wingman, Illich and most importantly, for her. It was also here that he would engage in aerial combat with Colonel Bishop for the final time. After it was confirmed that all SAM (Surface-to-Air Missile) defense sites have been destroyed, Akula made his move and entered D. C. airspace in full throttle. His target: the White House. The Trinity warhead, still damaged, rests under his wing. As he passed the bridge where the last SAM defense site was destroyed, he was once again hounded by Colonel Bishop. Since he couldn’t fire the cruise missile from afar without the risk of going off-target, he decided to end his rivalry with the American Ace so that he can concentrate on his target better when the time came. The two Aces were once again locked in aerial combat with one trying to gain advantage over the other. This time, Akula has the advantage of maneuverability thanks to the marvel of Russian and Indian engineering known as the PAK-FA. With this advantage on hand, he was able to dance around his adversary’s missile attacks and for the missiles he couldn’t evade, he had his decoy flares. In addition, he was also able shoot down one random fighter after another (and also some ground units and buildings) while still maintaining combat with the American Ace, mocking him the entire time. After deciding that he has done enough property damage, Akula noticed that he may not have enough fuel for more shenanigans. If he was to have his revenge, he had to strike there and then. He flew up, and then descended in a direct course to the White House. He pressed the button that would launch the cruise missile but just as his mechanic warned him, it wouldn’t launch due to some malfunction. All the while, his adversary had been harassing him with missiles which he calmly deflected with decoy flares. He gave the missile deployment button another try. It became his undoing. ----- The world was still moving in slow motion. He watched as his adversary’s aircraft move slowly toward his flying carcass, Vulcan machine gun fire leading the way. He had to hand it to the American. The man is relentless and stubborn. As Colonel Bishop’s aircraft was about to pass, he spoke a word through his aircraft’s radio: “Bishop”. There was no malice or hatred or even a tone behind that word, just a simple acknowledgement. One of the machine gun bullets tore through his canopy and his body flew outside the cockpit. Colonel Bishop then indulged him in his acknowledgement and replied: “Markov”. He is now free falling. Still alive but doomed nonetheless. He couldn’t deploy a parachute because his body was literally sucked out of his seat (which is where the parachute is). The only few things he has with him is his flight suit and his helmet which can still receive transmissions. He could do nothing more than contemplate his failure while waiting for the inevitable impact with the ground. In his mind, he thought about the three people he has failed. Firstly, himself for he had plenty of opportunities to finish off Colonel Bishop yet he never took advantage of them and became the death of him; Secondly, his wingman, who was also his best man at his wedding and from any way anyone viewed the situation, who died for nothing; Last but not least, his darling wife, Krista, who was killed by an American bomber, who was the entire reason behind Markov’s actions. He let his mind linger on the thoughts of her, Krista. From the moment he first laid eyes on her, to the moment he held her lifeless body above a pile of debris on a patch of Bosnian soil. He was about to think of what could have been when his radio received a transmission bearing Colonel Bishop’s voice saying “Trinity!” He couldn’t believe his ears. Another transmission came in with a second voice saying “Colonel, Trinity is still alive!” to which the Colonel frantically responded “I have it. I have it!” It was a miracle. He was actually going to have his revenge. He stabilized himself in the air and looked to his left and sure enough, there was Colonel Bishop’s aircraft desperately trying to shoot down the cruise missile that was getting dangerously closer to the White House by the second. He decided to know no more of this and took off his helmet while still free falling. He was content. He closed his eyes and waited for what lies beyond the veil of death. ----- He was standing in a field of green grass. All around him stood colorful creatures that resembled ponies but some of them had wings while others had singular conical horns. If he recalled his mythology correctly, they were called unicorns and pegasi. He noticed that two of these pony-like creatures, a white one and a dark blue one, bore both horns and wings on their bodies; he didn’t know what to call them. They were all facing him. One of the pegasi, a blue one with a large yellow patch on its chest, spoke to him in Russian. “Most of us may not be here anymore when you get back. Are you sure you don’t wanna stay for a little longer?” it said. Surprisingly, the fact that the pegasus spoke, in his language no less, didn’t bother him at all. He replied “I’m sorry Wonderbolt, but I’ve been away from home for too long. I miss my family.” The pegasus, Wonderbolt, can only sigh in resignation. “We’re sure gonna miss you” it said. “I’m gonna miss you guys too”. At that moment, the white pony that had both horn and wings said in a motherly female voice “Unicorns”. All of the unicorns stepped forward and pointed their horns to him. Despite the threatening display, he didn’t seem the least bothered by it. “If anypony wishes to say their farewells, you may do so now” the white pony said. Upon hearing this, all of the ponies spoke their own goodbyes to him. “Goodbye Andrei!” “We’ll miss you” “Don’t forget about us!” He felt warm tears start to roll down his cheeks. “Goodbye everypony! I’ll never forget you guys!” he said to the herd. He then felt a strange sensation inside his body. He looked at his hands and noticed that they were glowing. His stomach felt as though it was doing backflips inside his guts. He took one final glance at the herd of smiling ponies. ----- “What!?” he screamed. That memory came unbidden. In fact, he didn’t even remember experiencing it at all. He tried to stand up but failed because something felt different about his body. He didn’t remember lying down anywhere because the last thing he remembered was freefalling and waiting for death. Yet, for some strange and magical reason, he awoke inside what looks to be a large abandoned European castle filled with aged tapestries and broken stained glass windows. He tried to get up again with similar results. He looked down on his own body but he discovered, to his horror, that his body is no longer his own. What replaced it is the body of the pegasus that he recalled was named Wonderbolt. His hands were replaced by flexible cylindrical stubs where hard keratin hooves would be on a normal horse. His feet were also replaced by the same and his knees now bend backwards. His entire body is covered in blue fur except for a large patch of yellow on his chest. He looked at his back and noticed that he now has wings. This is too much for him to take in. He gave up trying to stand and instead, crawled to the nearest window to get his bearings. He looked outside and noticed the sun was high in the sky. That would mean that the time is mid-afternoon which makes telling west from east difficult. He contemplated using his new wings to fly out of the castle but before he could do anything, he noticed a large flock of birds approaching his direction. He looked carefully at the closest bird and was given a startling revelation. They are not birds. In fact, they were all pegasi wearing golden armor. Each pegasus carried a spear held by both front limbs. Among the throng of armored pegasi, he noticed that two were bridled and was pulling a carriage behind them. “What the hell?” he asked. He crawled further to a large wooden door but was stopped by a blinding flash of yellow light. When the light cleared, he looked behind him and saw a large unicorn, wearing the same golden armor the pegasi were wearing, standing where the flash of light was previously. “Andrei Markov?” it said. He doesn’t know if the unicorn or the approaching pegasi are hostile but given the circumstances, he’ll have to comply with whatever these creatures have in store for him. “Yeah” he replied. “The Royal Sisters wish to welcome you back to Equestria”. He stared at the unicorn dumbfounded for a few seconds before his brain rediscovered the connection to his mouth. "What?"