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kovacs-of-courage · 1 year ago

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Downspiral--A Eclipse AU Sky one shot

-------------------------November 8th, 1943------------------------------

-------------------------Pacific Theater------------------------------------

Sky gritted his teeth in concentration, jerking the yoke of his fighter plane forward. A myriad of alarms shouted demise from the view of his fractured canopy, smoke trailing his battered wings.

There’d be no landing this bird, not softly anyway. The brakes were the first system to go when the guardian’s laser hit, along with the rest of the empennage. Controlling its speed was an impossibility now, leaving Sky as the lucky(and not very grateful) pilot of a forever accelerating one-way carriage to hell.

The radio at his right sparked and flickered to life, incoherent static bubbling through charred wires and melted steel.

“Canary-O-...Canary One, Can you read me?”

Sky recognized the voice immediately; It was his captain, his ship’s captain that is.

“I read you command,” Sky said casually, like he was on any other mission, and not riding a miles long death spiral over the pacific. He thought it lucky that he’d regained his memories days before, given the fact that he’d be most likely disobeying orders if his captain contacted him for the reason he presumed.

“The order to retreat was signaled, all airborne pilots need to fall bac-”

Sky put his right hand on the throttle, cranking the level forward; a hurricane's worth of wind blasting into his goggles.

“I’m sorry sir, but I’m not doing that,” Sky said, unphased by the rapidly increasing g-forces of his chaotic descent.

“Oh yes the hell you are, petty officer. Some rat-fuck brass eagle and a beehive of metal flies wipes out half the fleet in an afternoon, and you think NOW is the time to start disobeying orders?” The captain screamed, his bafflement turned volatility evident.

“I do, actually,” Sky curtly replied. It didn’t bother him much, the idea of provoking the wrath of the military, and he reported to a higher authority anyway; whom he hoped he’d see again, if he survived this aerial bonfire.

The Captain, barely restraining his frustration, reacted as one might expect to hearing his best pilot casually go awol, in the heat of battle no less--

“Petty Officer, I am ORDERING you to turn back. You have five seconds to do so before I decide to take your cute little joke seriously, and order you blown halfway to hell.”

Sky scoffed, breathing unsteadily as plume-ing smoke flushed through the cockpit’s damaged windshield, “I’m...ha...touched you think me so important, sir. But I’m trying to focus here, so please shut up and let me fly.”

“Who the fuc-WHO THE FUCK do you think you are? You are disobeying a DIRECT ORDER; DON’T THINK I WON’T HAVE YOU SHO-”

Sky slammed his hand into the crackling speakers, disabling them, “This conversation’s over.”

As skilled as Sky was in the air; even he needed some piece of mind to do his job right.

He let the speed acclimate over his spiraling craft, the cranked throttle working its pistoned engine to the limits. He’d dropped out of the main area of devastation, the graveyard of falling tonnage where both the American and Japanese forces had been ambushed by Vah Medoh’s Guardian escort.

The fleet of propeller-mounted constructs swarmed the airspace, blotting out clouds and sunlight; more than worthy of protecting their prize. They numbered in the hundreds, maybe thousands at a generous estimate. Their numbers alone were enough to overwhelm any standing airforce, nevermind the lasers that boiled hotter than the surface of the sun.

Sky knew that there was a snowflake's chance in hell that he was going to catch up to Vah Medoh, in the state his plane was in. He’d worry about the flying war machine later--after he landed his soon-to-be pile of scrap metal.

It was a task easier said than done, Sky was finding. Fighting in the square center of the world’s largest ocean left his hands tied.

He did have an escape plan, if one could call it that.

North of his current, fiery heading was a thin wafer of land, two miles long at best. A paltry forest lined its inland paradise, surrounded by beaches of jagged stone and untouched nature.

For most pilots, trying to land across such a makeshift, unwelcoming strip would be an effort in self-destructive fatality. A recipe for an explosion of shrapnel and blood; the makings of a grim cautionary tale.

Sky was not most pilots.

Landing would be the easy part; in that Sky was confident. It was the trio of guardians patrolling the island that worried him; an all airborne attache, separated from the main fleet, and primed to blast him to kingdom come at a moment’s notice.

He’d known of their presence before his dive to scrape the waves, deciding regardless to follow through with his daredevil scheme. It’d been apart of the reason he was so dead-set on his forward acceleration--faster targets tended to be harder to hit.

He was flying the glass cannon of glass cannons; the slightest touch of a guardian’s laser beam an instant game over for him and his rumbling coffin on wings. Playing to his strengths, however few, would be essential to his survival.

That, and some out of the box thinking.

Sky had dropped in red-hot over the ocean waters, falling like a man made comet from the stars--riding his fighter a dangerous half-thousand feet or so above the surface. At his current, bone-rattling velocity, he’d reach weapons range in under a minute. Times like this made him thankful he was born and raised on skyloft; letting him shrug off g-forces that’d stop a human’s heart stone-cold dead.

The enemy horizon filled Sky’s cockpit in a moment’s blink; his craft racing toward the unsuspecting guardians like a goddess-thrown thunderbolt. They were spread thin across the island, a unit of one and a team of two patrolling to northern and southern ends respectively.

Sky went for the former, jostling his control stick back to raise his altitude, quickly matching that of his target. He breathed in deep, steeled nerves unshaken by the raging fires growing behind his seat.

Neutralizing a Guardian, according to his brother’s account, was a simple process when it came down to the mechanics. Its central eyepiece, the pulsating blue spiral at the bottom stalk of an aerial guardian’s chassis, doubled as its main cannon and only onboard optic.

Applying sufficient force to the shared hardpoint would, in theory, temporarily overlord both systems--disarming and blinding it simultaneously. An achilles heel of staggering proportions, something that Sky’s comparatively primitive weapons could easily exploit.

Pressing down on the control trigger to his wing mounted guns; Sky exhaled out as streams of cascading lead and destruction spat from his left and right. He clicked them on in the crucial seconds before collision, letting loose his full arsenal at as close as point-blank realistically possible.

The armor-piercing, high caliber ammunition tore through the immobilized guardian, shredding it’s ancient metals and circuity with the ease of a buzzsaw cutting up flesh.

Sky pushed further still, the smoking shrapnel and crackling debris flying past him in seconds; swooping wide around the island’s western side, aggressively fighting his half-responding controls--the metals of his cockpit quivering in unsteady unison.

“Come on..come on...stay with me here,” Sky said, mumbling under his breath, “only a few minutes longer.”

The plane turned to it’s side, committing hard to it’s broad arc; thin lines of blinking scarlet dotted across it’s wings--signaling greater damages to come.

Sky’s vision panned out, following the trailing reticles to their sources; finding the remaining guardians fast on his tail, primed to kill.

“And looks like the guests have finally arrived,” Sky said, thinking aloud.

The burning aircraft snapped from it’s exposed position, leveling it’s flight and moving between the paths of the ensuing energy blasts--avoiding contact by inches. Sky let the attacks pass, beginning a rapid ascent the moment after, the thrill of a thousand falls pumping his heart like an adrenalized sledgehammer.

The pair that followed Sky split into two roles, aiming to entrap him. He understood their strategy almost instantly, watching one guardian follow his steep climb, and another follow at a distance--leading its shots ahead of his predicted flight path.

Sky flew erratically, reacting to each timed strike with a knee jerk turn or roll seconds before impact, a playfully insulting dance through the smoldering air. He spat proudly in the face of the reaper.

However impressive his aerial acrobatics were, Sky knew that it was a bandaid fix to a gaping bullet-wound of a problem. Neither he nor his fighter could do this forever. He’d eventually slip up and suffer the consequences, or his deteriorating ride would fail and result in the same.

Landing as initially planned wasn’t an option anymore, it was becoming clearer and clearer that the only way his bird was touching the ground again was by gravity alone.

So he climbed.

Sky pressed his machine to the limits, rising steeply into the clouds. He’d increased the curvature of his trajectory until his flight path was nearly wholly vertical, the guardian in pursuit coming close on his quivering tail; it’s blinking reticle dead-set on leaving Sky as an airborne cremation.

The chase breached the heavens and gleaming sun, the amber horizon reflecting patterns of infinite rays off each machine’s chassy--manned and unmanned. Sky pressed the bulk of his strength into the jittering controls of his cockpit, geysers of broiling steam screaming from its torn gaps. The ship was tearing itself apart by the seams, velocity and injury mixing together in a fireball cocktail of catastrophe--Sky’s cue to leave, in other words.

Holding onto the windowless ridge of his canopy, Sky peered at the space directly below, the sight of the advancing guardian affirming his plan; it’s cannon mere moments from firing. He rushed to his instruments, speeding through its systems--and shutting down them all--effectively turning his ship into little more than a nine thousand pound paperweight.

It was a win for both sides, really. The Guardians got to clear the airspace, and Sky got a golden ticket to freefall--on top of not dying no less! Now that’s a bargain, a steal some might even say.

That’s what Sky thought, at least. He was unreasonably calm about the whole affair, eager to plummet through ozone once again. So eager he didn’t bother to bring his parachute, only his beloved sword and shield. He had an escape plan, and it sure as hell didn’t include letting an oversized sailcloth make him a sitting duck.

Sky hit the air running, finding his footing among the clouds and the setting sun almost instantly--like an angel being sent back to the heavens. It was like he’d never left, traversing the world among the stars as natural as he did the one below. He extended his hands to be level with his eyes, bending his knees--subconsciously arching himself against the wind’s pressure.

He’d left in a dash, faster than the guardian chasing him could process. The fleeting image of the pilot bailing not registering, as the airborne sheikah tank continued towards a head-on collision with the burning fighter plane; its beam cannon well into the process of firing.

The resulting shockwave rattled the air, the force hitting Sky’s back like a moblin punch, propelling him downwards. He shut his jaw tight, the taste of copper surging from his winded throat, the suffering mitigated by the visage of falling debris; comprised of charred steel and gears alike.

That was two down, and one sorry machine to go.

The remaining guardian, the supporting barrage from before, had a red dot on Sky the moment it’d realized he left his craft. A fast-ish response; good enough to handle most skydiving, sword-wielding maniacs, however many of those there happened to be. Its algorithms anticipated and prepared responses based on logical assumptions, predicting the opponent’s most sensible move and aiming to best counter it.

A key flaw in that thought process, as one might expect, was that it struggled to adapt to something truly stupid, a tactic so reckless that even a machine built for wave combat was left puzzled for answers. The type of bold, headstrong zeal that made it default to its base targeting mechanisms, throwing all advanced computing methods out the window and into a burning trash fire.

The type of bold, headstrong zeal that, to the bane of countless servants of demise and Ganon, was championed by the hero’s spirit. Sky’s landing strategy being the current example. He’d glided forward, giving each laser a wide berth in his swinging descent, choosing to fall closer to the Guardian.

He’d holstered the master sword, putting his head and chest behind his down-facing shield, his determination burning hotter than suns. The lasers increased in frequency, lines of calculating energy missing the hero upon each attempt, the cannon firing faster as Sky inched nearer.

Sky reached into his equipment, not more than a thousand feet from landing directly on the Guardian’s spinning propellers. He pulled forth a clawed, chain-loaded mechanism into his right hand, it’s ordained bronze and ivory reflecting the dimming sunlight.

Seconds away from contact, Sky readied his shield to the guardian; It’s cannon seething energy, it’s cerulean pupil ablaze and overloaded. It was now or never, the final tipping point of many to decide the battle’s climatic conclusion.

Rippling lightning on it’s edges, the juiced-up laser bit jaws of scalpel precision through the skin of reality; gouging wounds of jagged white bleeding in it’s wake. It drilled into the goddess shield, the god-like thunder popping molecules and devouring matter in voracious hunger.

The force of the attack was immense, a malignant battering ram of bone snapping hatred. Sky was spared from it’s carnage, the idol of his goddess rewarding his faith--protecting him entirely against the forces of darkness. He pressed his strength, what remained, into his left arm; moving the shield in the initial stages of the impact--deflecting the projectile back to it’s creator.

Unable to avoid the parry, the Guardian was forced to swallow it’s own medicine. An eruption of smoke and whining electronics layered the space separating it and Sky. Not that it stopped Sky, who’d already reached out his clawshot, aiming square at the burning machine.

The clawshot hit, finding home in the lower region of the guardian; sinking into the darkened sight of it’s disabled cannon. Sky clicked it’s return button, snaking himself into the suffocating cloud, navigating with ease. He made contact in seconds, pocketing his grappling device once he’d gotten ahold.

The time for gadgets has passed. Fi would guide him home, as she always had.

Brilliant light pierced the chaos, a beacon of hope and justice held righteous. The master sword dissipated smoke and doubts alike, humming softly in her master’s grasp. Sky held tight to her, climbing himself to the top of the guardian with his sparehand--a difficult task given the turbulent spiral it’d adopted.

Reaching the top, it wasn’t hard to see the reasons why.

It’d been left a shell of it’s former architecture, the explosion blowing craters in the roof of it’s inscribed carapace. One of it’s propellers had been blasted clean off, and another was bleeding sapphire flame in unsteady rotations. That left a single fully functioning propulsion mechanism, and little ability to repair it.

Which, to Sky’s credit, was his intended outcome.

He shakily hung to the guardian’s roof, his foot digging for leverage in bundles of exposed circuitry and gears. He reached into his equipment again, the golden hilt of his scarlet whip soon revealing itself.

Sky slung his arm forward, circling his whip tight around the center shaft of the damaged rotor. It barely avoided the blades, the tilted angle of flight leaving it spare from injury--and allowed Sky the stability for decent footing standing atop the guardian, not at fear of being blown off.

Still, that did little to stop or slowthe incoming crash; a cursory glance would make it seem like he’d just traded one suicide boat for another. Sky only hoped that the opposite was true, otherwise this entire effort would be in vain, and the world he vowed to protect would be less defended for it.

It’d be a tragedy of multiple degrees, spinning gears in a heartbreaking clockwork of guilt. And it’d stay as a possibility, a future that wouldn’t come, for so Sky sweared it.

He hadn’t died a martyr yet, and by the grace of hylia, he wasn’t going to start now.

Sky rose the master sword above his head, swaying under the rapidly changing heights. He closed his eyes for a second, a precious infinity of connection between him and the powers that he forever served, and the people he protected.

He let his will go onto his blades, and his blades onto the heavens, or their remnants. She answered his call, as she had countless times before, the vestiges of his love’s divinity whispering cascading adoration across the essence of Sky’s soul.

Thunder struck down onto the blade of evil’s bane, warm benevolence radiating from it’s cerulean shine. Sky let the sword absorb the energy, choosing then to drive it deep below his feet; an ocean of power and awe surging within the guardian, cleansing the corruption and rejuvenating it’s salvageable systems.

The Guardian whirred to life, as best as the circumstances allowed anyway; the mauve malignant replaced by backdrops of blinding white. It didn’t adjust itself upright, seemingly aware that Sky was aboard. It spoke in unintelligible garbles, in a language Sky had no understanding of.

It kept on it’s trajectory, spinning it’s damaged rotor faster as to compensate for the speeding descent. Sky held onto his whip like one would the reins of a horse, having sheathed the master sword in a desperate two-handed attempt to steer the now hylia serving machine away from the treeline.

An effort that was, in the end, only partially successful. The guardian’s meteoric drop had hovered precariously above the island jungle, the blades of it’s rotors shredding the stray branch of leaf that reached to it’s height. Inevitably though, it dropped lower and lower to the surface, brushing against increasingly denser and harder fauna.

The Guardian’s solution? Open fire on everything in it’s path.

Sky recoiled, due both to the physics of being a crashtest dummy on a makeshift shiekah rodeo, and at hearing the buzzing, broken sound of the guardian’s main cannon recharging in full. A main cannon that, this time around, wielded the cosmic divine as it’s power source.

Blistering might spat from the unsteady machine, a singular line of searing light cleaving molten-hot mayhem through the forest; an erratic light show of fatal consequences. The pathway before Sky was little more than fuel for the newborn forest fire, the unintentional consequences of his gambit more than evident in the carnage.

There was a light at the end of the tunnel, however, as the beachside clearing of the island grew larger in view. The guardian barely a few feet above the earth, running over charred bark and flaming stumps like a bull in a china shop. Sky dug his foot into it’s metal, hoping to ride his rollercoaster to the end.

The island had other plans.

A boulder, to be more specific.

Hidden by foliage and dug into the sand, the several ton rock laid at the edge of the forest, and was unshaken by the goddess powered robot. The collision with it’s frontside had been the final nail in the coffin for Sky’s ride--and the reason he was currently shaking sand out of his ears.

It’d launched him a dozen feet in the air, ragdolling across the beach like the other wreckage, though he was significantly less worse for wear. Unlike the other crashees, HE was still in one piece.

Sky continued rolling, his leather jacket and cap doing well to prevent the sand from completely flooding his clothes. It took five minutes, five minutes of tumbling limbs and groaning regret for the universe to take some sense of pity on him and stop his fall.

Despite how loud his spine was screaming for him to sit down, Sky found that recovery was faster than he’d thought. Getting to his feet was a reward in itself, more than any punishment that his body tried tempering it with.

Sky looked down at himself, ruffled and disheveled, his legs and arms coated with blemishes and burns. His brother had once told him that scars were hallmarks of victory, if that were true, then Sky’s stunt had earned the hero rounds of roaring applause. It didn’t bother him, not really, himself was the last thing Sky was concerned about--didn’t even make the top five.

Getting a way off this rock was his main concern, maybe finding one of his brothers, either or at this point. That being said--with no ship, no radio, and being deserted on an island in the middle of nowhere; finding an escape would take some creativity.

A problem for another day, another night perhaps too. He’d just spent his working afternoon losing his job and making death for theirs, energized was not the word to describe himself after that.

Right now, he’d appreciate his survival for what it was; a victory.

And that was enough.

I made this due to the wonderful art(as seen above) my friend @ikaishere made of Ace Pilot Sky! Go check them out, they're wonderful!

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