About 10 minutes ago, on the other side of the Appaloosan Mountain Range, a squadron of four Diamondian-painted Su-35s are circling this area. They are indeed the Skull squadron that is stationed at the airbase right next door, however, instead of sprinting to protect their airfield, these guys had other ideas.
Their co-leader, an experienced pilot who scored five confirmed kills over Equestria, whose callsign is Bandog, came up with this idea; which at first was disagreed by the rest of the squadron. Their intense nationalism and militarism ideologies forbade them from abandoning their territory. However, after knowing that their enemies were a squadron of F-16, C variants, their minds changed.
Not only does their F-16 are the older versions, but also the pilots in the box; a bunch of rookies led by only two experienced ones, in comparison the members of the Skull squadron had been through several combat situations. Their pride and extreme nationalist viewpoints overwhelmed their senses.
"Oh come on, find us some other worthy targets." Skull 3, a cocky hotshot grunted, "Uggghh! Just thinking about wasting my time on some rookies is making my blood freeze..."
"No shit Skull 3, the Equestrians are out of their minds, sending their young bloods to die." Skull 4, a somewhat normal diamond dog sighed, "Don't they care bout' their pilots? I knew their brainwashing method would screw themselves up."
"I don't think we need the boss to show up," Skull 5, their squadron leader's fanboy replied, "the Equestrians are digging their graves here."
Their chatter was cut as a radio stutter came through, "Huh, I thought they'd last longer." Skull 3 scoffed, "Base's down, so we're up or what?"
"Alright, time to clean the mess, Skull Squadron search and destroy!" Bandog ordered, as his jet pulled up toward the exit of the mountain range, Skull 3 groaned as he followed, and the rest of the Skull squadron immediately moved in.
Bandog's radar blimped the moment he was in the clear sky, "Tally 5, 10 o'clock, angels two-one, let's give em somethin' to think about."
He switched to the longer-ranged R-77-1, locked the first bandit up, and fired, "Fox 3 on the leading bandit!" The rest of the Skull squadron fired as well, "Break!" Then they spread wide open like a blossom of death, each heading towards a bandit they'd locked up.
Switching back to the Archangel squadron, each of the members had their tail glued with an incoming missile.
Gallus grunted as he hit a high-G notch, in which the R-77 lost track as it exploded mid-air, "Archangels status report!"
"I notched it!" Comes Archangel 4.
"Phew! Close call..." Comes Archangel 5.
"I'm good squadron leader!"Comes Archangel 2.
"I'm trying... Holy-" And then it was cut off by a radio stutter.
Gallus's heart stopped for a second, "Archangel 3 do you copy over?!" It was silence for a few seconds before Archangel 3 went back online, "Ugh, the shards got me, uh, the engine isn't functioning right."
"Archangel 2 cover Archangel 3, MccRay RTB." Gallus sighed in relief, however, the constant radar warning prevented him from speaking any further, "Tally 4, 3 o'clock! Angel one-five and closing in hot! Engage bandits!"
Then it was when streams of rounds passed through the air around his cockpit, then he merged with the bandit, "Merge! Bandit is a Flanker!"
The two aircraft merged as they went to a split-S, with the Flanker taking verticle and the Viper descending. Gallus had seen how thrust vectoring works as he tried hard not to lose too much airspeed, the Flanker's nose pointed at him before the Viper could pull his. A stream of rounds came flying by, due to the distance it all missed.
Gallus peered over the HUD, airspeed is about 380 knots, just have to be careful not to cross the 350 knots line, his beak gritted as he felt pressure crushing his head.
The Viper's nose finally came back around and was met with the Flanker, the two whizzed by into a two-circle. Gallus had a plan in mind, instead of pulling the bandit into the HUD he was driving toward the Flanker's high six. Another stream of rounds flew by followed by a Fox-2 shot, Gallus calmly popped the flares as the missile went for the decoys. However, the Viper has the upper hand now, with each circle closing in, the Viper has the Flanker tighter in its grip.
The battle is closing to its end as the Flanker was unable to pull the Viper into a nose-on, Gallus saw the chance, and he wasn't gonna let it slide. Seeing the Flanker now dropping toward the ground, he went full pulling the HUD onto the bandit. The air brakes were opened as the Viper's nose swung onto the Flanker.
"Fox-2!" A single 9x was launched as the Flanker went desperate, dumping all the flares as he can, but unfortunately for him, he was facing a 9x.
A fireball erupted as the entire left wing got torn off the Flanker. No ejection, the flames have already engulfed the cockpit.
"Splash 1 Flanker." Gallus then turned towards the rest of his squadron.
"Archangel 5! Get him off me!" Clickbug's desperate voice rang through the radio.
"I can't! Got my six plenty!" Came Razor's voice, with two Flankers on his tail. Two of them snatched his six o'clock tight, flares and streams of rounds were everywhere. Razor gritted his teeth, he notched another R-73 as he hit a high-G maneuver, now having his brakes out. One of the Flankers went overshoot, taking this chance, Razor pulled it into the HUD.
"Give me tone, give me tone..." Upon hearing the missile growl, Razor pressed the pickle, "Fox-2!"
The missile went straight up the Flanker's engine, before the flame could engulf him as well, Razor made a hard dive left. However, the Flanker following him lack reaction time and flew right through the fireball. Its engines coughed a couple of times before completely shutting down, after a failed attempt to restart the engines, the Flanker pilot ejected.
"Splash two bandits!" Razor then searched wildly for Clickbug's plane, "Archangel 4 hang on!"
"Damn it! I can't get him off! He's good alright!" Clickbug panted as he constantly hit high-G, his airframe shook as streams of leads whizzed passed them, leaving several smoking holes. His aircraft shook as the engine began to cough.
"I'm hit! Not critical though! I can still-" Before Clickbug could finish his sentence, his engine blew up.
"Archangel 4! Eject! Eject!" Razor cried as he chased after the Flanker who shot down Clickbug.
About five seconds later, the wrecked F-16's cockpit blew open, as a changeling went flying out with his parachute opened. gallus immediately called the search and rescue party, however, Clickbug would have to deal with his own survival problem until the party gets here...
Inside the Flanker cockpit, Bandog had a dark expression on, "Can't believe they got taken out by these rookies... huh, the one with blue streaks on the tail is a bit challenging." After taking out that F-16. Bandog was immediately engaged by what appeared to be his wingman, "It doesn't make any difference though." He then breaks right, driving the Viper along with him. He looked up upon the rear mirror and saw a smoke trail approaching his tail fast, with a scoff and a few pumps of flares the missile went stupid.
"Skull 1 where the fuck are you?" Bandog gritted his fangs, although he has no problem taking on this Viper yet it was getting on his nerves, "It takes you this long to pick your target?!"
"...Hold them off a bit longer..." A deep voice said through the stutters of the radio, "I'll take on the blue-streaked one."
"Yeah just hurry the hay up." bandog said as he pull the stick back while decreasing the airspeed, his vision went from horizontal to vertical, and his eyes peered over the side, the Viper had overshot. Bandog has been practicing the Cobra in an effective way since the war began, and had taken out several bandits with it, he's confident that this one would be no different.
Pushing the nose down horizontally, he lined up the bandit with his HUD, hearing the tone he smirked as he pressed the pickle, another kill mark.
However, his hope went down as the Viper pumped flares before going for a negative dive down while pumping a large number of flares. The R-73 ignored the first set of flares but was lured by the second set. It steered a few feets away from the Viper before exploding. Bandog's eyes widened in interest, "Not bad." he said under his breath.
Meanwhile, Gallus, once again, was being radar locked.
"Shit! There's another bandit?!" Gallus gasped as another high-G turn rammed against him, the missile then went whizzing past his cockpit, exploding in the distance, "Archangel 4 status report!"
"He's glued onto my tail! This guy got something..." Razor's voice came, followed by exhausted pantings.
Gallus couldn't reply back since he was merged again by a Su-30 with a skull painted on the side of its nose. The two aircraft clashed with one another, circle after circle, round after round...
Razor isn't any better than Gallus, his wing took a hit from the shards before, it must've hit the fuel tank, and now white smoke is trailing off. Bandog, who was getting impatient with his bandit, laughed manically as he landed several shots on the Viper's airframe, but to his surprise, the Viper is still flying.
"Enough air show, the next shot will end this," Bandog growled as he waited for the tone, his paw on the pickle, Razor had dumped all his flares, a Fox-2 shot at this range would definitely kill him.
Suddenly, his RWR began to scream loudly, Bandog's heart missed a bit, where?!
It was too late.
Bandog's jet exploded.
Razor looked back as he sighed in relief, "Thanks, Gallus! I owed you one!"
"What the hay was that?! It's not me?! Ugh! This bastard's still onto my six!" However, Gallus's frustrated reply send the Abyssinian into confusion and fear.
"Return with your wingman now," A new voice he'd never heard before suddenly broke into his channel, "I'll take over."
"Who the hay are you?" Razor, although having suspicion, did as he was told. If that's from an enemy he's dead already.
"It doesn't matter right now, do your job and I'll do mine." The mysterious voice ended the conversation.
Gallus, although confused by the sudden withdrawal call from Razor, broke off the dogfight and dove down, with the Flanker following close behind. Skull 1, the eldest and the deadliest member of the Skull Squadron frowned at the sudden unusual move of his bandit, something told him this is a trap. However, before he could break off, the RWR screamed.
This time, however, he was met by yet another Flanker head-on. Turning his jet to the side in time, the two Flankers merged,
Skull 1's eyes widened, it cannot be...
With its thrust vectoring and canards going full power, the Su-37 Terminator turned back the circle almost instantly, its yellow wing tips and the bright '013' on the side of its nose sending chills along Skull 1's spine.
"Das Gespenst..."