*The story is entirely fictional, any resemblance to real event is purely accidental.
Episode 3: Squadron X
At an Eastern Military District’s airbase, far to the cold and snowy North, 6am
The dense snow makes up a heavy fog surrounding the atmosphere, the cold wind whooshes through the air, the entire area only has the color gray and white of the snow storm, a pretty eerie place isn’t it. “So you’ve already planned on coming to Gensokyo?” Sanae asks Snow Demon who is walking along side her, “Yeah, according to the plan, we will leave Russia in 2 hours and come to Gensokyo using the Wrap portal, but since you’re here, guess we can use it for something else instead of taking us there.” Snow Demon replies, “Us?”, “Yeah, the Squadron X.”, “What is the Squadron X?”, “Right, I forgot to tell you Sanae, 2 years ago, I was assigned to a special squadron using only prototype experimental fighter jets, flown by the best pilots of Russia, they named it “Squadron X”, I’m the leader and also the first member of the squadron, the squadron has 5 members, compare to 8 members of the Orochi squadron lead by Shinigami.” He says. Walking along side Sanae is a tall man, around 50 years old, he has a heart beard and part of his hair is silver, his name is Kochiya Sokolóv (means Falcon in Russian), he is a half Russian-Japanese and he is Sanae’s father; He’s a famous Ace pilot, known worldwide by the nickname “Snow Demon”, he earned that nickname because of his signature white and black color scheme and his “demonic” flying style; he and Shinigami are the world’s best fighter pilots, however, both are the complete opposite of each other. After walking for a while, a jet sound can be heard in the distance, the sound is coming from the direction that Sanae and Sokolóv are facing. A short while later, a pair of red and green navigation light can be seen in the dense fog, the aircraft is coming closer and closer and then a silhouette starts appearing, eventually a fighter jet bursts through the fog revealing itself. The aircraft looks like a heavily modified SU-30SM2, the body looks very edgy, that means it has stealth features, it also has a pair of big canards, swept wings and two angled tails. It is painted in a gray and silver digital camouflage (for better reference, it look like the X-02s Strike Wyvern but with swept wings like a traditional Flanker, not the weird 4th dimensional wings like the Wyvern, the canards and tails are fixed and can’t tilt like the Wyvern, the canards are straight and the rear stabilators are tilted upward 45 degree), it can carry 8 missiles in its two intakes, 4 missiles in each, it also has 6 wing pylons, making it a dangerous multi-role fighter. It was designed in order to even further enhance the maneuverability of the Flanker family, however it ended up being extremely unstable. A specially made computer had to be put into this thing and it fixes up to 50 flight mistakes per second, the Russians really went nut with this thing. Its characteristics make it a 5th gen fighter. As it is approaching the airbase, it lowers its landing gears and flaps for landing. After it has landed, the aircraft taxis to the parking zone. A few technicians run to the aircraft, one of them pushes a ladder for the pilot to get down from the aircraft. Despite being a two seater fighter, only one person controlled the aircraft; a young man, around 25 gets out of the aircraft and climbs down the stairs, he then takes off his helmet and hands it to a technician, one of them give him a coat to keep himself warm in the harsh environment, he then goes to greet Sokolóv and Sanae. Sokolóv introduces him to Sanae, his name is Volkóv (means Wolf) and his callsign is “Arctic Wolf”, he is the pilot of the SU-60SMX, the aircraft that he just flew with, he has this aircraft because he is able to control it better than anyone who has flown it, he was assigned to the Squadron X a month after Snow Demon. The three then go into a tent to drink some hot chocolate and coffee. About 10 minutes later, the next plane arrives, it is a extremely stealthy SU-47 (looks like this), it was made to see how stealthy the SU-47 frame can be, the Russians took a SU-47 and combined it with the body of an F-22, greatly increased its stealth capability and aerodynamics, it can carry 8 missiles in its weapons bay, the aircraft also has 3 pylons on each of its main wing, those things are optional, but the pilot decided to keep it to increase the amount of weapons. It was originally meant to be 5th gen but its characteristics somehow brought it up to 6th gen. After it has parked next to the SU-60SMX, everyone can see the text “S-47” written next to the cockpit, which means it is the SU-47 Model S-47, the last and the most advanced and powerful model of the SU-47 line. The pilot gets out and does the same thing as Arctic Wolf, the pilot is also a young man, he greets everyone with his signature line: “Can you hear the Eagle’s call?”, because his callsign is Golden Eagle, the nickname of the SU-47, his name is also Orlóv which means Eagle. He then joins everyone in the table and has a hot chocolate. The next aircraft arrives 15 minutes later, it is a SU-37 Terminator painted in silver with red stripes on the wings and a black nose. The aircraft is nothing special, it is just a SU-35 with canards and better maneuverability. However, what makes it special is its pilot, the pilot is a man around 27, he can control the SU-37 like it’s his body, every movement is just like how he moves his arms and legs, making fighting with it much harder than you think it would. His callsign is Terminator and people are so used to calling him like that to the point that almost no one remembers his real name, but he doesn’t mind, he even likes it. Then, everyone have a talk about the current situation, some future plans and more, they eventually talk about the newest member of the squadron. When Sanae asks, Snow Demon says that she’s by far the youngest female fighter pilot in Russia, he also mentions that she recently took part in a battle of the Gensokyo war, Sanae seems surprised. And finally, after another 10 minutes, the final aircraft arrives. At first, only a terrifying howl can be heard in the distance, indicates that it’s a SU-57, after a short while the navigation lights can be seen, then a massive silhouette appears in the fog and the aircraft eventually burst through the fog and is revealed. Of course, it is none other than the snow white SU-57 with inward sloping vertical stabilators. The aircraft is the SU-57X, also known as “The Cursed SU-57”, it was made to further improve the stealthiness of the SU-57, however, it came with a cost, the inward sloping vertical tails made the aircraft abnormally unstable, two prototypes were made and one of them crashed during a test flight, the test pilot luckily survived but was badly injured, he had to stay in the hospital for half a year. The second prototype on the other hand, has no trouble at all, the pilot has no problem controlling it despite both are completely identical, she’s truly born to fly. The aircraft can carry 8 R-77 missiles with 6 additional pylons under the main wings. It is classified as a 6th gen fighter. After the aircraft has landed, the pilot steps out of the aircraft and takes off her helmets, she’s a tall, curvy and beautiful Russian girl around 21 with long brown hair and blue eyes, her appearance can easily capture any man’s heart. Her name is Snezhnaya Roza (lit means Snow Rose), she was assigned to the Squadron X only a year ago. Her name also explains the silver rose insignia on the vertical tails. After a short while of greeting, talking and discussing, it’s finally 8am and everyone starts getting prepared to fly to Gensokyo. Snow Demon goes to his jet, it is a Sukhoi T-60, also known as “The Phantom” or “SU-67”, it is a stealth, tailless experimental 6th generation fighter jet built on the flame of a SU-57, it had made way for the development of other 6th gen fighters after it from all around the world. Even though from the same frame, it and SU-57 only have a nearly identical nose section, the rest of the body look nothing alike, the most notable thing are the 2D thrust vectoring nozzles on the T-60, SU-57 has 3D ones. It is painted in Snow Demon’s signature white and black color scheme, his insignia is a silhouette of a demon head with glowing red eyes, they’re imprinted on the rear stabilators. Everyone then takes off and flies in an arrow formation. The leading plane is Sanae, behind her is Snow Demon, to his left are Golden Eagle and Arctic Wolf, to his right are Snow Rose and Terminator. After a while, Sanae asks if everyone is ready to enter Gensokyo, everyone says yes. Sanae then uses her power to shoot a magic projectile, after a while, it stops flying and opens a Wrap portal leading straight to Gensokyo. After everyone has passed through, the portal closes and that is the last thing people have seen of the Squadron X in Russia.
*Shanghai Alice Aircraft Company’s factory airport, 8:30am.
After they’ve arrived in Gensokyo, the squadron lands, parks their aircrafts and everyone goes to meet Masayoshi. After greeting each other, Sanae asks if Reimu is okay, because she heard that Reimu came to her shrine to find her. Of course, no one knows the answer, not even Masayoshi. But upon hearing the Reimu name, Snow Demon suddenly has flashbacks of the past’s war. Yukari suddenly interrupts everyone and says “I’m letting her uncover her past.”, that short sentence surprises everyone, “Wait, you let her does that, at a time like this?” Snow Demon asks, Yukari says: “The truth is slowly revealing itself from before this war was started again, it all started when Reimu meet the Shinigami, she was having flashbacks after the first encounter with him, flashbacks of the lost part of her memory, if she can’t uncover it, it will continue to haunt her for a long time. We can’t let that happen, especially during a war like this. We have to let her know this so she can fight and overcome it.”, Snow Demon says: “Hmm, you have a point, but yeah, I am also haunted by that scene for 23 years… I feel so bad that I couldn’t-“, “Don’t blame yourself Sokolóv, we saw everything.” Yukari stops Sokolóv from going any further. After a long day of walking through the familiar Gensokyo again, Sokolóv goes down the road leading to a massive cave, there’s an empty field on the right along the way, he walks with a red rose in hand. Then, he suddenly stops, then he starts making his way through a wall of tall grass. After he passes through the tall grass wall, behind it is a large half sand half grass field, there seems to be a ruin of something, it’s black and there’s a trail behind it. He approaches the ruin, he kneels down and puts the rose next to it. “I wish I could’ve saved both of you… Hope you are in peace now…” he says. After a moment of silence, he stands up and goes back to SAAC airport. At 6pm, SAAC is notified by the Russian Special Naval Force that the enemy’s naval fleet is preparing for another attack, Shinigami and his Orochi squadron will also present as well. Upon hearing that, Snow Demon asks the fleet to ask the Russian military to bring some experimental weapons for their aircraft, they replies that some BBRs, a Trinity and an X-42 are available, Snow Demon says: “Alright, bring me the Trinity and X-42, about the BBR, bring the air-to-ground version for me alright?”, the RSNF accepts. The RSNF also says that 5 fighter squadrons along with a cargo aircraft that carry those weapons will come to Gensokyo in the next morning using the artificial Wrap portal. With everything prepared, the only thing left is the action…
*To be continued…