It took only a few seconds before Husein had his six secured. "Thanks, Romeo," he said as Romeo shot down the Fulcrum behind him. He then looked for another target and found one at his ten o'clock, which he engaged. Minutes spent, SDMs fired, both sides changing turns between the pursued and the pursuer, but neither could damage the other, until suddenly the Fulcrums began to move out of the combat area.

<<Mask Squadron, we have five minutes until their reinforcements arrive. More than enough time for us to erase these guys. Engage.>>

This will be the longest five minutes today he thought as he began attempting evasive maneuvers. One of the planes from the so-called Mask Squadron flew past his front, and he looked at the radar. To his surprise, the enemy plane didn't appear on radar even though it was at dogfighting distance. "It's strange. It's not on radar. Even F-22s do appear on radar at dogfighting distance. What plane is that?" Husein said over the radio, while turning left to go after the plane that flew past him. He gained a visual on the plane, and its forward-swept wing immediately reminded him of the Su-47 Berkut, although he could not precisely confirm whether those planes were indeed Berkuts. Alright, we're two generations behind. Let's see if this thing is still worth flying. He tried to get a lock on the enemy plane, but it failed. In fact, the target designator was not even attempting for it, indicating that the plane was not even tracked. The lack of HMS in his F-5 only made it even worse.

Husein switched to guns, hoping that at least he will give them a few scratches. Before he could even start firing, the pursued plane broke left. Husein then looked left and found another forward-swept wing aircraft nearby. Knowing that the two planes are going to do a Thach Weave, Husein dived his F-5, losing the momentum for a gun attack but saved his aircraft... for now. One minute had not even passed for all those maneuvers.

The minutes that followed the arrival of Mask Squadron seemed like the closest Anemi Team would ever get to fighting demons. Their maneuverability was incredible, they were invisible to the radar, their missiles gave no warning and their outlandish looking aircraft struck uncertainty into the hearts of the pilots, who had given up fighting and were now only trying to survive. The Phantom II of the group was attempting to do much the same thing, though its lack of maneuverability made it an easy target for the highly advanced fighters. As the Captain struggled to bring the fighter through various loops, rolls and other evasions, the fighters easily caught up to him. One passed directly by the cockpit, giving a good look at the form of the body. Suddenly, the WSO exclaimed.

"Captain, I think I know that fighter! I can't remember the name, but I know the specifications really well." She said, before the Captain responded.

"Mind sharing? I'll listen to anything you say, so long as it saves us from being blown to bits." First Lieutenant Ansel cleared her throat before explaining.

"The plane is a Neucom design, brand new. It uses a new cockpit system called COFFIN, which I don't know much about, but it's kind of like an armored cockpit, where a three-sixty degree view is given by these CCTV cameras. That's not very important to us, but it does give it that alien look. It's supermaneuverable, has 3D thrust-vectoring and those forward-swept wings, as you can see. It's armed with a thirty-millimeter cannon and state of the art missiles that use electro-optical guidance, meaning it doesn't give any warning. However..." The girl paused, as if for dramatic effect.

"Spit it out!" Charles, increasingly urgent as the missile shots got closer and closer to the cockpit yelped. She smiled before continuing.

"...Clouds can get in the way of the optical tracking." She relaxed in her seat, seemingly happy with her announcement.

"So from what I can understand, if we go into the clouds, we'll be safe from their missiles?"

"Exactly. They can still shoot us, of course." Nodding, the Captain immediately pulled the aircraft into a climb, engaging afterburners.

"Alright, everyone, get into the clouds!" Charles ordered the rest of the team to head into the clouds to escape the missiles. The engines of the Phantom began to roar as the large fighter began to approach the clouds. A missile was fired at the climbing aircraft, but it was burned up in the hot exhaust of the after-burning engines. Ears were popped as the altitude of the plane rapidly mounted and Charles grunted at the somewhat painful feeling, taking a deep breath from his mask. Finally, the plane entered into one of the larger, but thin, wispy clouds. It'll have to do... Kreulich thought to himself as he began maneuvering the aircraft around inside the clouds. "First Lieutenant, got any indication on when the reinforcements will be here?"

"ETA, about two minutes." She replied, before being interrupted by an enemy transmission.

Mask Squadron
<< Damn it, they figured out the clouds trick. Everyone, switch to guns. We can't let them leave here alive. >>

<<Alright, everyone, get into the clouds!>>

Miku didn't have to be told twice, and pulled hard back on the stick, coaxing what thrust she could from the smoking engine. Even without the damage, her Corsair's lack of reheat meant she was down on power compared to everyone else, but the shrapnel had hurt her climb rate dramatically.

As Angel dodged another missile by mere centimeters, She heard Charles' command to go into the clouds

"I'll do anything to get away from those freaking missiles!" She stated as she high-g rolled, towards the nearest cluster of clouds. She looked at her 6 as she got closer, trying to see if the bogey was following her. luckily, she made it inside, but that was also a disadvantage that was bad....

"Wait, they know where we're at, but we don't know where they're....at...... Worst idea I've ever heard, Border Boy!" she banked left, towards the other planes.

Scott grimaced as he heard the order to head for the cloud layer. Currently, he was down low close to the oceans' surface, hoping that the reflections and clutter from the surface would go some way to mask the Corsair against the hostiles. Ramping the Corsair's engine up to higher speed, he pulled the nose skyward. The big intake gulped in air, and the engine strained as much as it could to give the power he wanted. The lack of afterburner was hurting, and the jets' sub-sonic speed was an issue in this particular instance. Instead, he was forced weave and yo-yo as he climbed to avoid a predictable course as he climbed.
Each moment rocketing skyward was a tense one, and Scott felt like targeting sights were drawing circles on the back of his helmet with every minute he corkscrewed skyward into the blanket of water vapour.
Finally, he felt the tension ease to a small degree as the Corsair punched into the wispy veil of vapour. Coming wings-level, he took position of the other aircraft of the unit, and rubbed the back of one glove across his eyes for a moment, before taking a deep breath and scanning the skies, craning against his straps to look over both shoulders.
"At least here we might have some chance at defence," he said quietly over the squadron frequency. "If they have to close in for guns, we can evade better at close range, and their speed doesn't matter as much..."
He tried to sound hopeful and positive, but his tone showed through - their chances weren't great, but at least they had something to claw hope from. He didn't harbour any chances of shooting down the bandits, not at all - just surviving would be fine. And, whatever deity was watching, the rest of them would make it through as well.

Meteor pulled into a steep, turning climb, zig zagging to make any attempts to lock difficult. She kept an eye on Scott below her, watching for missile trails behind him. She punched into the clouds a second before Scott, hooking hard to the side and continuing to zig zag. She replied to Scott on the squadron frequency.

"They have to use radar in the clouds, fire off some chaff and it should blind them."

She dropped some chaff of her own and reversed the direction of her turn, hoping that her idea worked. If they were lucky one of the bandits might take some into its engine.

Alexander yawned and straightened out in his bunk slowly creeping out of it. Once up, he shuffled on over to the stall to ponder upon his appearance and as usual he grabbed his blue t-shirt, black combat pants and threw on his boots. "Bah just another boring day" he said to himself. Why was I hired for them again? Was it for the mock dogfight? Security? His mind was jumping through thoughts... What kind of security are we if we are not even allowed to tag along in the mock dogfight? We are mercs Elizabeth and I, nothing more, nothing less. "Whatever might as well get on with my day" he muttered. Might as well check in on my Draken to see how the outfitting is going. He headed on out of the barracks out into the bright sunny day. As he squinted his eyes under the brightness he noticed something.. weird. Some fighter jets were on the tarmac as if prepping to take off along with a few others out in front of the hangers. Huh... He thought that the dog fight was scheduled for 1300 hours. It was about 1320 ish last he checked. Whats going on? Could it be another part of the mock dogfight? Well it looks important or else the aircraft technicians wouldn't be scrambling around putting SDM pods under the wings of the planes in front of the hangers. He had to know what was going on. His Draken could wait for later, he had to find out what was going on. "Best way to know" he mumbled "Is to get to the air traffic control tower..."

Elizabeth was buried in a book. Not worried about the noise around her..more like tuned it out. She had guessed that aircraft were launching, but only assumed it to be a drill. Elizabeth had lost track of time, and did not know that only 20 minutes had passed since the launch of those in the mock battle. She was wearing something more casual than her flight suit. Shorts and a tank top, with sneakers and fingerless gloves. Aviator Sunglasses perched on the top of her head. She was laying on the top of her craft, with the mechanics so worried about the craft that were partaking in the 'drill', her craft wasn't bothered with anymore.

But that didn't mean her hanger wasn't busy with scrambling mechanics looking for things that weren't in other hangers. A few had stopped to ask her why she wasn't on alert, but she had tuned out everything out, thus not hearing any of them. She pulled herself from the book for a moment, but kept things tuned out. Wonder if Alexander is awake, need to ask him why we are here. She sat up, putting her bookmark in the book and closed it then got up. First walking over to the cockpit to put the book on the seat then getting off the craft. She walked out of the hanger and started walking to the barracks, pulling the aviators down from the top of her head and using them to shroud her eyes

That's when she noticed Alexander, where was he walking. She looked over in the direction he would be walking in an could only guess the control tower was his destination. She moved to intercept him and ask him what he was doing. Once she got to him she called out "Hay Alex, what're you doing?"

<<Alright, everyone, get into the clouds!>>

Upon hearing the instruction, Husein immediately stopped his dive and began working his way up. Currently at 3000ft, he had to climb about 20000ft more if he wanted to find those clouds. At the first three seconds he attempted to climb up the fastest he could, then switching it into a counterclockwise upward spiral, then clockwise, then some other random curvatures coming to his head, sometimes dropping about 500ft before climbing again, trying not to make his flight path predictable.

"Has anyone seen the bandits?" Husein asked over the squadron channel, still conducting evasive maneuvers. He maintained a good distance from the other planes, trying to minimize the chance of them being simultaneously locked on and fired without them noticing it.

The call to get in the clouds rang out, and this did not make Natasha's situation any better. Practically skimming the ocean, she had all of the sky to cover if she wanted to make the clouds. Worse, it seemed all other friendlies were already there or nearly. She hit the afterburner and the wings of her MiG-23 swept back, approaching the aircraft's Mach 2.32 top speed. After she was at a suitably high speed, she pulled the stick up and the Flogger suddenly sharply rose from the ocean, screaming towards its allies in the clouds. As she climbed, Natasha saw the unmarked assailants swarming around her comrades, thankful that there was nobody she could see on her tail. She was still climbing amidst evasive maneuvers just in case, and soon two attackers spotted her and nosedived from the amoeba of dogfighting. Fortunately, by the time they had gotten down far enough, turned around and arrived on Natasha's tail, she was in the clouds. The two craft that had broken off to meet her were still on her tail, though, and as soon as she entered a cloud she dramatically slowed down and made a hard right turn, throwing off her pursuers. She was now officially part of the maelstrom of aerial combat and pushed her MiG-23 to the limit trying to avoid the unseeable attackers, She couldn't mount an offensive and couldn't run - she had to survive until the reinforcements arrived...although she wasn't sure what good reinforcements would do against these opponents.

The squadron flew into the clouds, hoping to hide from the missiles of their foes. However, for the remaining two minutes before the reinforcements would arrive, they still found themselves mercilessly hounded by the enemy fighters. Diving in and out of the clouds, with thirty millimeter cannon fire sweeping by their cockpits, they tried their best to evade the powerful aircraft. Those two-minutes might have been the longest one-hundred twenty seconds of their lives, until their salvation finally came.

Friendly Air
<<IPG A-Team, this is Major Andrews of the 27th Tactical Fighter Squadron "Albatross". We're responding to your request for aid. >>

Almost as if responding in reply, the Mask Squadron leader spoke, a tinge of disgust in his voice.

Mask Squadron
<<Their reinforcements are here. Mask Three, deploy ECM and return to the Valhalla, everyone. We'll get them later.>>

A bang followed shortly after and communications were lost for a moment as the fighters turned away from the group and flew away from the group.

Friendly Air
<< Sir, permission to pursue!>>

<< Negative. Our job's only to bring these guys back to McNealy. We don't have time to chase them. A-Team, fall into our formation and we'll take you home. >>

With a nod, Charles brought the Phantom II into the formation of twelve F-2A Viper Zero's. Within moments, the rest of the team had found their place and the flock of metal birds steadily headed home at relatively low speed cruise to make up for the damaged A-7. It took a good hour, but eventually they all safely arrived at the base. Allowing the damaged planes to land first so they could be directly brought to aprons ready for repairs. Overhead, one could see a smoking AWACS with a missing radome, explaining the loss of communications upon Mask Squadron's arrival. Planes with little damage were directed to a separate runway for landing and the F-2A's of Albatross let the others land first.

Charles had little difficulty landing the F-4E, having sustained little more than a bit of shrapnel damage to the nozzle caused by one of the missiles being burnt up during an afterburn, though both of the two in the Phantom II silently hoped for the safe landing of the A-7 which had sustained more than a little damage during the battle. The canopy opened with no trouble and both of the pilots descended by ladder. When they touched the ground, both suddenly felt a feeling much akin to the one sailors felt upon walking on land after a long voyage at sea, a somewhat nauseating, teetering lopsidedness taking them for a moment. Removing their helmets, they were met by an urgent looking man who gave each of them a bottle of water before hastily saying something.

"Report to the briefing room, western building, in twenty minutes." The man didn't wait for any questions before bounding off to other aprons to speak to the other pilots. Before this, the man paused in front of a pair of pilots who looked to be heading towards the control tower and after handing them both water bottles, he directed them too towards the briefing room after telling them hurriedly that the control tower was highly busy and not a place to be at the moment.

"We should get going, no wasting our time in case we get lost." Charles spoke as he stopped watching the man and began walking towards the western building. Erika began to follow without much hesitation, worriedly watching the hubbub around the base. The F-2A's had landed and were all refueling and those which had refueled were already beginning for another launch. A team of mechanics quickly showed up to repair the nozzle and begin refueling. Obviously, they were in a hurry to bring them back in the air. It took them a few minutes to find the briefing room as they occasionally stopped to watch repairs or take offs, but eventually the pair found themselves in a well lit room with a projector. Upon entry, they were saluted by a man wearing a uniform not of the OADF, but somehow similar. After saluting, the man stopped typing on his laptop to speak to Erika.

"First Lieutenant Ansel, I'm Colonel Popov, I'll need you for part of the briefing. We think, based on what you said, that the fighters with that Mask Squadron are something you know quite well. Mind coming over here? Captain Kreulich, you can sit down, you're quite early." He had a rough voice, with a thick Estovakian accent, complete with cliché rolled 'r's. Nodding, Charles sat down near the front and began to take a few sips from his water bottle as he awaited the briefing and Erika looked over the man's searches, nodding at his low tone remarks and ideas. As Charles sat in the front, thinking over the past events, he wondered what the other pilots were doing. All there's to do now is wait and see what's going on... He silently observed, watching a flickering light fixture on the ceiling.

Miku felt her hands shaking on the stick as she started her approach and landing checks. Warning lights were flashing up on her panel as she began to throttle back and lowered the flaps. And then, when she pulled the lever to drop her landing gear, the indicator failed. Behind her mask, she went white as a sheet.

"Tower, Checkerboard Three has no gear indicator. Request visual confirmation of gear deployment." Her voice was shaking more than before. Over her shoulder, the black smoke was getting thicker.

Please, just make it down... You've made it this far...

Alexander was on his way to the control tower when he heard the sound of running footsteps and looked back to see Elizabeth run up to him. "Hay Alex, what're you doing?" she asked once she caught up to him. "Trying to figure out what the scrambling of fighters were for earlier, figured I go check out the ATC. Out of anyone on this base they would know whats going on." he said in a curious tone of voice. As they approached the ATC a man rushed in front of them almost out of nowhere.
"You two are going to need these" the man said as he handed out a water bottle to both Alexander and Elizabeth. "Report to the briefing room, western building, in twenty minutes. Oh also you can't go in there right now." as he points towards the ATC entrance. "They are quite busy and you need to get to that briefing." Then the man hurried off about as quick as he arrived.
"Wait hold on!" Alexander cried out and to no avail, the man was already jogging down the sidewalk towards the hangars.

Alexander looked back at Elizabeth "What was that all about???" he asked.
Elizabeth started to say "Don't ask me, I don't know who-" Alexander interrupted saying "He said it was the western building right???"
"Yes, the western building... If you would have paid more attention to the guy maybe you wouldn't have to ask." she said a bit flustered.
"Well let's get going then." Alexander said all innocently as they worked their way on over to the building.

Alexander and Elizabeth made their way over to the briefing room not knowing what to expect. What was it about, he wondered. How did the mock fight go, and why were the fighters launching? Only time will tell...
They entered the room and quietly took their place behind Captain Kreulich. Alexander took a swig from his water bottle and took a seat. Wait, he should probably be in his flight suit right now... Alexander felt a tad awkward as he sat there in his standard attire, he didn't know what to do so he figured he might as well fidget with the pen in his pocket while they wait.

Meteor broke off from her circuit and pulled in to the right and below the damaged Corsair. She matched speed and looked over her shoulder.

"Your gear is down but the engine looks bad. Better set down quick. I'll stay on your wing for the approach."

Her voice was dead calm through the radio. She adjusted her position to give the other aircraft a little more space, rising up a little to make herself visible.

"OK... here goes..."

The next twenty seconds as Miku brought the bleeding Corsair down onto the runway seemed to stretch out into eternity. She could hear her heart pounding in the confines of her flight helmet, so loud in fact that she barely heard the squeak of her tires contacting the runway and beginning to roll, before pulling the throttle lever right back and engaging the thrust reverser.

Slowly, she turned the smoking plane off the runway and onto the apron, pulling up where the marshaller directed her and cutting the engine. And just sat there as the adrenaline rush finally hit her.

She was still alive.

Elizabeth had followed Alexander only so far to the briefing room until she heard the sound of jets landing. She turned to watch the Phantom land first. It didn't seem too badly damaged. Then she noticed a smoke trail following a Corsair. That's when it hit her like a semi hauling tons of bricks. These planes had real damage, the mock battle should have only been using electronics. She stood there stunned as the wounded bird landed. The squeak of its tires brought her back and she got over to the briefing room as quickly as possible.

Once she arrived, she took her seat next to Alexander and leaned over to whisper "This is more serious than you think" She gave a cold yet slightly shocked look to him. "A Corsair just landed, it was smoking, and as far as I know, the mock battle wasn't using live ordnance to shoot at each other." She straightened up to let what she just said sink into Alexander.

Kate broke off as Miku landed, circling the airfield again before making her own landing. She jumped from the cockpit before the ladder was even in place, hitting the ground and walking quickly off to where Miku had parked. She pulled her helmet off as she walked, slinging it over her shoulder.

"Solid landing, you did a good job today. It was tough but we all did a hell of a good job."

Slowly, Miku reached up and pulled off her oxygen mask and opened the canopy, taking a few deep breaths to purge the recycled air from her lungs. She climbed out of the cockpit and down the ladder, before nearly collapsing at the foot of it as her legs gave way.

Scott circled overhead as he watched Miku land, the damaged Corsair approaching steadily and at a pace that dragged every moment into one of shifting his weight nervously on his ejector seat, and feeling droplets of sweat trickling down his spine under his flight suit. Consciously, he willed the stubby little plane to land safely, and found himself muttering quietly at every twitch of wings or rudder.
When the tires finally kissed the hard surface of the runway, he let out a whoosh of breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding, and came around into the landing pattern.
Three green and locked, and he made a perfectly conventional approach, landing with not a problem at all, in distance enough to make the first turnoff. Fast-taxiing to the parking area, the blue-grey patten Corsair rolled into position beside Kate's plane, and as soon as the ladder extended and locked and the canopy motored open, he scrambled out and down, jogging over to the side of the pair.
"She's right," he added as he overheard Kate's words. "None of us were expectin' that, and you made a damn good landing with damage. Believe me, I fly one of these guppy-mouthed stubborn pigs, so I know how hard that damn landing is. That was excellent flying".

"R-right... Thank You..." Miku stammered as she pulled her helmet off and tried to get her legs back "Just wish my first proper flight wasn't so... harrowing..."

Slowly, she started to walk back towards the ready room.