Skull Squadron

Battle for the Kebeht Fortress, Kingdom of Strihm, Third inferior section, Atlantis

The emergency alarm sounded at full power, waking everyone in the barracks. Chaos is everywhere, no one knows what is going on, but it was clear that it was very bad. I immediately got up from my bed and put on my pilot suit as quickly as possible, I still wasn't getting used to my new body and took me longer than my companions, they were the first to run down the corridor and I followed them behind, we were only separated by a mere 10 seconds and those same 10 seconds was what saved my life from ending up like theirs, the explosion was such that I hit my head against the wall, the helmet protected me from severe damage.

Shortly after Urye and Emel, Nanami's last remaining bodyguards, came to my side, as soon as they saw my bleeding head they became very nervous, they tried to help me, I told them that I was fine but that I had to get to the hangar and fast, I had to go there as soon as possible. Seeing the resolution in my eyes they took a huge piece of debris that was blocking the passage of what was left of the aisle and with their strength managed to lift it enough to allow the rest of the surviving pilots to continue on their way. On the way I met The White Banisher, he was leading his Elite group into battle. His powerful Lance Gun was as tall as the hallway, he had to walk carefully to avoid harming the wounded. He saw me for a second and waved a greeting or farewell, one never knew which until the day was over.

Unfortunately, there was no time to thank him, so I continued my way to get to the hangar. When I got there it was pretty damaged and there were both fires and wounded everywhere, there was nothing to do, except to find a way to get the Walkers out of there as well as the place to be able to defend the base. Luckily it didn't cost me much to find mine, its crimson red color was hard to miss, and my robot was still intact and ready to take off. Since my actual body is much different than normal, certain modifications had to be made to the cockpit of my personal Walker, the seat needed space for the tail, the screens higher and closer to my face, the controls smaller for my hands, and the seat wider for my big thighs. One of the mechs helped me to enter the cockpit because the ladder was destroyed, I fastened my belts as fast as I could, and the same mech that helped me did the fastest check of his life and gave the green light to unlock the machine. The screens lit up and the communication systems began to transmit all kinds of orders.

But the battle had not even started yet, I had barely made it to my war machine, I still had to survive to get to the battlefield. I started to move the walker towards the exit and try to see how the situation was while the defense was being coordinated. The horror came almost immediately when I saw the panorama, huge walls of fire consuming everything in its path, all the anti-aircraft batteries were firing in panic in all directions, cars were coming and going carrying wounded or personnel everywhere, and some walkers had managed to take flight and were now trying to defend the launcher so that those who were still on the ground could manage to get out.

The Walker XW-2 although better than the other prototype versions, was far from being a good design, to be able to take flight it needed a very wide space, the same as that of a runway, going against the idea of the same Walker in the first place, which needed to be deployed in the lack of space of the last levels of Atlantis, so it was achieved to keep a sloping shuttle and greatly shorten the space needed to be able to be in flight. In the base, there were a total of 4 shuttles, two of them destroyed, one damaged where the engineers are trying to fix it as fast as they can, and the last one operative. You didn't have to think much, you had to run to it, pray that a dragon didn't grab you, and survive the 30 seconds it took to takeoff, 30 long seconds in which you could not move in any way, within a priority target to be destroyed by the enemy.

On one of the screens, an incoming transmission appeared while I was waiting for those 30 seconds of agony. It was Rose, in her face you could see that she hadn't slept for days, in her hand, she had a coffee into which she was pouring vodka too, at this point she surely used it even to brush her teeth, it was clear that her problem with alcohol was getting worse, but no one could blame her for seeking refuge in something. When she saw me she immediately started talking.

"The dragons are making a preemptive attack on our base because of our plans"
"Damn it!"
"Somehow our plans have been leaked by the enemy, we were so close!"
"We have a traitor!"
"I don't care anymore, get up there and kill everything you can!"
"When I find out who the culprit is I'll kill him myself!"

"Mrs. Rose! Elise!"
"You have to see this!"
"It's one of them! It's a True Class Dragon!"
"A True Dragon has entered the area of operations!"
"7 minutes before it's upon us!"
"I'm trying to see which one it is!" Charlotte, my AWACS operator, was the one who made the news so devastating.

" Cука Blyat! will today be the day we all die?"
"Wolf, Vermillion, Ghost Squadrons!"
"Change of plans, forget base defense, let the white cloak and anti-air teams take care of it"
"I need you to buy time, intercept the True Dragon and try to delay it until it can be identified and find a way to repel it!"

"Launch in 15 seconds!" 

"Empress Elise!"
"Skull Squadron standing by and ready for orders!"

"Max!"
"Glad to see you're still alive!"
"Who else made it?"

"Right now in the air are Rick, Focker, and myself."
"Dixon is still trapped in the hangar but his Walker is still functional"
"I hope he can make it to the launch bay"

"Okay listen up"
"The Scarlet Spear team is on its way"
"It will take them several hours to get here"
"We won't make it by then."
"Skull Squadron, meet up with the other squadrons and try to buy some time while I try to get Helios Blaze done and running to see if it can do enough damage"
"In case it fails you will have to get the True Dragon as close as you can to Scarlet Spear at any cost"
"If the base falls there will be nothing left"
"May God be with you if he is still on our side"

"Launching in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1"
"Take off!"

I immediately felt my body multiply several times its weight. About 5g of force coursing through every meter of both the robot and my body, a boost in velocity so fast that you're just never ready to feel it happen. The launcher was also far from ideal, but there is never enough time and at least it works, which is the important thing. My Walker was not damaged in any way and could sustain flight without problems, quickly the other members of my squadron arrived and began to fly with me.

"Charlotte, have you figured out which True Dragon it is?"
"Is it finally the seventh one?"

"Negative"
"Wolf 1 informs me that is the True Dragon of Drought"
"Prepare for high temperatures"
"The power supply system of the Walkers could go into critical meltdown if the safety limit is exceeded for a prolonged period of time and cause a huge explosion"
"Do not expose yourselves to heat as much as possible"

"Today is not our day"
"Is anything else that can get worse?"
"Come on, I have little left to lose!"
"Make my day, Punk"
"Of all the dragons that could come, has to be the only one that's totally immune to fire!"
"Helios Blaze is a concentrated high-powered laser beam!"
"But as high-tech, as it may be, at the end of the day it's still just a campfire with computer chips and glass"
"As fucking tough and overpower as these motherfuckers are, I wouldn't be surprised if it does absolutely nothing to him"
"...."
"We'll do the old faithful one"
"I'm going to try to gather a lot of explosives somewhere and set it off"
"I'll pass on the coordinates of the bomb later"
"Don't get him there until the time is right"
"I can't think of any more ideas in case I lose this one"

"Skull Squadron!"
"Reapers dragons class 8 are heading towards you at full speed"
"Time to intercept: 15 seconds"

"Fucking over-powered bastards"
"Please nerf them, this shit is too one-sided."

"Oh Come on Focker"
"Be worthy of your last name and prove that your parents made the right choice to keep it"
"Didn't everyone say you were the number 1 test pilot?"
"You are the one with the most experience here!"

"Of the survivors? Yes"
"Of all of them? Never"
"..."
"What's the plan girl?"
"Who is left behind?"

"Whatever, we are all dead men walking"
"Focker your last name has to be passed on to the next generation if it ever exists, everyone agrees on that"
"Max, I like you"
"Rick, although crazy he has the most potential here"
"Dixon you came in last, sorry buddy, it's your turn"
"Make it count"

"It was a pleasure to have fought alongside you gentlemen"
"I hope that sometime we can all meet again together on the other side"
"Charlotte, start the auto-destruct process for my unit"
"5 minutes I think should be enough"
"I don't think I'll last longer than that"
"...."
"Ok, guys, let's do this!"
"YOLOOOOO!"

Dixon separated from the rest and flew straight to where the dragons were coming from. The rest of us had to follow without looking back, we had to help the others as soon as possible. We managed to arrive shortly after, just after Dixon's five minutes, because we heard his explosion in the distance. The true dragon of the drought was in combat with the other squadrons, who were trying to do their job of distracting him.

My team and I separated a little and started firing our weapons to give the others a moment of respite. The dragon seeing more enemies coming hit the ground with one of its feet, a huge sound accompanied it, and a tremor could even be seen from the air. Pillars of enormous fire began to come out from all sides, consuming a huge area around the enormous creature, in his face, you could see the mocking laughter, boasting of what he had just done as if to say "come on if you dare". Several brave men accepted the challenge and managed to pass between the pillars of the game, one of them even launched a couple of explosives, but the dragon countered by spitting fire from its mouth, a fan-shaped flame so brutal that it melted a Walker in a matter of seconds, over the radio you could hear the screams of agony of its pilot, who had the misfortune of not dying immediately.

Our turn was next, Focker advanced on the powerful creature and dropped several of his bombs on it, Rick followed him, taking a huge risk and managed to hit it in the head. Max looked for a way to get the attention and attacked the ground around him to make him fall in some way, I went after him but he moved and I had to dodge his huge tail, I flew pretty close to the ground, where a pillar of fire appeared in front of me, I received a direct but short hit, it was less than a single second but the heat was brutal, but the Walker was still operative, or so I thought.

W̳̿͟͞A̳̿͟͞R̳̿͟͞N̳̿͟͞I̳̿͟͞N̳̿͟͞G̳̿͟͞

C̳̿͟͞o̳̿͟͞r̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞ T̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞m̳̿͟͞p̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞r̳̿͟͞a̳̿͟͞t̳̿͟͞u̳̿͟͞r̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞ A̳̿͟͞t̳̿͟͞ C̳̿͟͞r̳̿͟͞i̳̿͟͞t̳̿͟͞i̳̿͟͞c̳̿͟͞a̳̿͟͞l̳̿͟͞ L̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞v̳̿͟͞e̳̿͟͞l̳̿͟͞

The controls got pretty rough, I could hear the locomotion system struggling to keep up, one of the video screens went out, and sparks started flying around. I had to use a fire extinguisher before the fire entered the cockpit, it made seeing in there almost impossible, I could only rely on my memory to remember where everything was to keep driving.

"Elise has been hit" Max reported in panic.

"Elise!"
"Your Walker reports an extreme increase in the core"
"The control system is being damaged. It's melting"
"At this rate, all systems will cease to function in 1:30 seconds"
"I advise you to retreat immediately!"
"You cannot die here!" my AWACS was shouting in panic on the radio too.

"Charlotte, Calm down"
"Is there any way to cool the system?"
"An external way?"

"One moment"
"...."
"On the map, there is a lake of water, it should be about 5 kilometers away, I believe"
"If you manage to get into it you should be able to avoid the explosion"

"Elise, you have to be careful"
"You cannot fly at full throttle as this will only overheat it even faster"
"The cockpit of the XW-2 is not fully insulated"
"Also the propulsion system will not work underwater, you will have to get out of it manually"
"Water will enter the cockpit, you could drown depending on how long it takes you to get back out" Rose quickly mentioned as she continued to lead the rest of the base defense.

"And the other option is to follow Dixon"
"He will not forgive me"
"Focker, continue to put pressure on the enemy"
"Rick, Max, with me."
"I don't have time to entertain myself with small dragons, I'll leave that to you"

I started my journey to try to save my aircraft. Time began to count, every second counted. The obstacles were many but my companions managed to save me from them. Near the lake, when I had it in my sight, horror struck again, my controls were blocked, the trajectory was correct but now there was no way to save the aircraft. As soon as I hit the water I had to jump to save myself. 

"Elise!"
"Prepare for impact in 5..."

4

3

2

1

*PUM*

My head hit something pretty hard, the pain made me open my mouth, the water was coming in and I couldn't breathe. A pair of hands grab my back and throws me out of there, managing to save me.

"Elise?"
"May I know what you are doing?"
"Please don't give me those scares!"
"You were drowning in the bathtub!"

"Who the fuck?"
"????"
"????"
"!!!!!"
"Levia?"
"What are you doing in my bed!"
"How did you manage to get up here and climb in on your own?"

"I'm the one who can't move remember?"
"You were the one who came running"
"You came screaming that you needed water and you threw yourself against the bathtub."
"It's a good thing I was asleep in here and I was able to get you out in time"

"Oh fuck"
"I screwed up again, didn't I?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that, it's just that ...."

"Don't Worry"
"I had already heard from others that this could happen"
"In any case, I'm glad I could help you"

"Darling!"
"Are you all right?"
"You ran out right away in the middle of the night"
"Did it happen again?"

Tamamo also came running to the bathroom, she was in her full Goddess mode, so her body produced an aura of light quite pleasant to the sight, so it helped me to relax. With her hands she lifted me up as if I were a small child due to our size difference, since I was all wet she used wind magic to dry me and wrapped me between her fluffy nine tails, it was quite comfortable and relaxing. She did all this every time  I had a problem of this kind, Levia was excited to see Tamamo the way she was, but seeing that she was still the same she just took it as the strange reality she was living in now. Unintentionally the three of us ended up sleeping there until the next day.