"Yea, seeing two of her should scare the crap out of anyone who's stupid enough to challenge us." You say as you're helped up into your plane by Morgan.
"Yup, nothing scarier than an untouchable laser carrying pony." Morgan said with a smile on her face as you shook your head and got ready to go and fly with them.
"Yea, but you forgot about the burst missiles, they're just as scary at the laser, and we can use both on ground targets." You say as Morgan lets out an evil laugh.
"There's something seriously wrong with you two." Falken said as you shake your head and start up your plane getting Morgan's attention.
"Alright you two, lets go." You say as you taxi out to the runway with Morgan still prancing around you.
"Damn it Morgan! Just sit off my three, Falken take the nine position." You say getting Morgan to stay off your right wing when Falken walked up to your left.
"Alright. Time to go play in the sky." You say as you advance the throttle and take to the skies with Falken and Morgan.
 
The three of you spend the next four hours dancing around the sky allowing Morgan to see how capable you are in an aircraft.
"Dad you're amazing. You're doing the same things I can do." Morgan said to which you responding with a little laughter.
"Of course I can. This is the same as you, just not a pony that's all. How you hanging in there Falken?" You say as you look over your shoulder to see him still flying off your left wing.
"I'm fine. Just a little bored that's all. So when are we going to go and do something?" Falken asked as you check your calender, two days from now you're supposed to launch the assault along 171.
"Give it a couple days Falken, in a couple days we're covering the attack ponies, and I doubt we'll have much time to sleep when we're running that." You say as you get an alert from Brezhnev.
"Is Princess, she in Avalon's Shadow. She wants to talk to you." Brezhnev said
"Alright I'll be there soon Brezhnev" You say as you flip your 02 around to head back
1245 Hrs. Avalon's Shadow.
Celestia is waiting for you as you taxi over to your shop.
"Rex, you and I need to talk." Celestia said as you opened the canopy to your fighter.
"No really?" You say as you drop from the cockpit.
"Your sarcasm isn't welcome. We've amassed enough ponies to invade. You've dealt them massive blows due to them underestimating how dangerous you are. Though they are amassing to defend against my troops, they are misplaced and will be unable to defend themselves due to what you are asking of us to do." Celestia said as you smile.
"Yea, about that. When my ponies fire their ordinance you've got ten minutes to sweep in and start capturing their land before they can get back on their feet and counterattack you." You say explaining to her what needs to happen.
"Why that precise?" Celestia asked.
"Did you want a military operation or a blunder that's only going to result in your ponies getting killed?" You say with a little bit of anger as to why she's questioning you
"I didn't think you could run a military operation." Celestia said forcing you to scowl at her.
"Right, I may be a stupid human, but this stupid human has spent enough time around military planners to know what an operation is supposed to look like. So go ahead and enter whenever you want after we strike them, or you can listen to me and we both can keep casualties down to a minimum." You say with enough force for Celestia to shut up and listen for once.
"So your plan?" Celestia asked
"Tomorrow we fly in, and destroy as many of them around the route as we can, we'll cut you a thirty mile swath on our first pass, we'll swing around and pass again if we haven't depleted all our munitions in the first pass, and drop again. We'll do that and then we'll be on call for close support, if they don't learn to run when they hear jets screaming in overhead, they'll learn, and learn quick." You say explaining what you're going to be doing
"When are you going to launch the attack?" Celestia asked
"When did you want the attack?" You ask knowing if you have full authority of the thing you're going to rush Celestia through it.
"Well, I would prefer if it were earlier in the day so we have the time to rush in and occupy their land." She said as you nod.
"How's 0730 hrs sound?" You say knowing you'll have to alert all the ponies right now to have all 69 attack ponies to the plan, and you're not letting them go unescorted into combat, especially not Thunderbolt and the other A-10s.
"7:30AM will work for me, I just hope you can get all of your ponies there and ready for the attack." Celestia said as she turned to leave
"We'll be there, You're the one who needs to be ready." You say as you smile and then go off to grab the announcement system to tell the entirety of Avalon the plan.
 
1330 Hrs. Avalon's Shadow.
You've informed all the ponies that are needed when the operation starts, and they're moving to use Avalon's Shadow as a staging area.
There's a few ponies here that are on edge, and Thunderbolt's one of them.
"Thunderbolt, come with me would you?" You say as you motion for her to come to your shop with you.
"Ok Thunderbolt, you know I'm not going to let anything happen to you." You say as you close the doors to your shop so it's just you and her.
"I know, but it's not me I'm worried about, it's you. I don't want you going with me, Morgan and Falken will be enough." Thunderbolt said trying to dissuade you from going tomorrow morning.
"You can try with all your heart to stop me, but I'm still going Thunder. Whether you want me to or not, I'm going." You say as you put a hand on her leg. It's the best you can do without getting crushed. In a sense you were putting your hand on hers, except she doesn't have hands, and she's got the capability to crush you.
"Anon, I know we can't bear to see either one of us get hurt. But what about Falken and Morgan? What if they get hurt?" Thunderbolt said
"They won't trust me." You say
"How do you know that?" Thunderbolt asked.
"Just trust me on that, they won't." You say still very certain that tomorrow's going to be alright, three lasers sweeping through the gryphons should suffice to make them run as you Falken and Morgan are the first three into the area to hit some of the AA.
You stand there in a semi silence before Thunderbolt kisses you which knocks you off balance due to not expecting it.
"Thank you for being so stubborn." She said as you're regaining your balance.
"Well, that's the first time being stubborn has gotten me anything." You say with a slight laugh, making Thunderbolt blush.
"There's no need for you to be embarrassed, it's just us in here." you say as you give her a playful hit, which you still have failed to learn that for her to feel that you've literally got to throw all your weight behind it and this would be the third or fourth time you've nearly broke your hand doing this.
"Well shouldn't we be preparing for tomorrow morning?" Thunderbolt asked.
"Well yea we should, but you're not coming to bed with rockets and missiles, your GAU-8 I can tolerate being loaded all the time, but I'd rather not be poked." You say making Thunderbolt laugh.
"Well, since we're here shouldn't you prepare your aircraft? Since it stays here?" Thunderbolt said and you nod in agreement.
"Yea, probably should." You say as you walk off to the second TLS module to charge it and Morgan's.
From there Thunderbolt assisted you with the burst missiles, and this whole thing didn't take up too much time, but you're not about to go for a flight with a fully armed ADFX.
 
1800 Hrs. Edge of Space.
Thought it's the night before your main assault against the gryphon, the bar is in a near party mood.
Although there's only 69 assault planes, there's many more participating in the attack, Hornet's nest is going, half armed with AA and the others with ASM or AGMs. The Migs aren't letting the Hornets get away with it either, same thing with them
The section of the Sukhoi branch that's in Avalon's Shadow is a pretty diverse group too, the Fullbacks armed for pure anti ground, Sea Flankers a mix of AA and AG, Flankers themselves also a mix, with the few Terminators purely armed for AA.
It's almost a scary thought having so many ponies capable of destruction flying behind you to rip into the gryphons, but you're not on the receiving end of it so what do you care.
Right now all you care is that everyone is enjoying themselves. In all honesty you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow and you hope Celestia has a radio, or at least a way to communicate with Brezhnev and Echo who are providing overwatch for everyone. Tomorrow would be hell on Earth, or whatever this place is called. You know for the gryphons the gates of hell were about to open and you would be the devil himself.
In the time between arming your ADFX and being in the bar with everyone you painted your craft to match Morgan, white body with a single red wing. You would have painted both wings blue, but there was already an F-15 like that and you weren't about to piss him off by stealing his paint scheme.
Hopefully the gryphons are thick headed enough to think that there are two of Morgan, which should be terrifying enough as they've also heard and proliferated the story about T-50, in fact you're sure the entire world has heard that story in particular, considering it makes Morgan so happy to hear her own exploits.
 
2000 Hrs.
Avalon's Shadow has basically shut down, except for those who are on night patrol, nobody's awake, or at least outside. It is a day of preparations, and a day of worry, in the morning it all has to be put behind all of them so they can focus on the mission at hand, providing Celestia with as much support as she needs.
 
0530 Hrs. Runway of Avalon's Shadow.
It's now your D-Day, the day of days that will define your nation's future, if you fail, you will be invaded by ponies, you're certain of that.
You're out first on the runway, Morgan and Falken off the ADFX's wings. You're leading them into combat, and frankly you're nervous.
"Alright everypony, I'm leading the formation in and after I get the first attack run in then you're all free to engage at will. We're going for a total destruction of the gryphon forces, by any means necessary. it's going to be a down and dirty attack, fast and hard, of course the jets will make it there first and strike first, and the prop ponies will come in and sweep up what the jets left behind, hopefully by then all AA defenses in the area should be destroyed . if not, those are the primary targets." You say as you start your craft, and every pony on the runway follows suit, giving you the approval you want to take off, barreling down the runway with Falken and Morgan at your sides, it's going to be one hell of a day, you know that for sure.
Behind you are the A-10s and the Fullbacks, then a batch of escort fighters, then nighthawks, and Frogfoots, finally allowing the IL-2s to get into the sky as you head towards rte 171 to decimate some gryphons.
 
0715 hrs. Above the pony encampment, just beyond visual range of rte 171.
"Brezhnev here, got a message from pony boss. She say stick to schedule, 0730." Brezhnev said as he was the first to arrive, leaving earlier than you to set up in the area.
"Copy that Brezhnev, 66th Air Force unit is here, we're just orbiting for the moment. Relay that we're waiting on a few more attack ponies." You say as your small formation of fighters circles around the camp.
"Da, will do. Oh, and gryphons have message for you. They wishing for ceasing of fire." Brezhnev said as you just laugh.
"Yea, that's not happening. Already promised support to Sunbutt, so that's not happening." You say as you watch the time tick by, as this station is about five minutes from the gryphon front lines.
With five minutes left, you point your formations towards the route, leading the way yourself.
"Falken take center, your laser lasts twice as long as Morgan's and mine." You say as you roll above and over to Falken's left, causing Morgan to shift over to him.
"Dad?" Falken asked.
"Your laser is an upgraded version of ours. What we lack in the amount of shots we make up for in burst missiles. So you want center or not?" you say to which he nods.
"Good, All ponies arm your weapons and prepare to attack." You say as you arm your TLS as you can see the gryphons staring up at you.
"On your go Falken." You say just before he fires his laser, the blue iodine laser cutting a swath down the road as you and Morgan near simultaneously fire yours.
The three of you alone were enough to get the gryphons to scramble about at the flight of A-10s lead by Thunderbolt came screaming in GAU-8s firing clearing a large path from their V formation.
When the A-10s finished their gun run, the Fullbacks swept in firing their AGMs, rockets and bombs into the gryphons causing chaos and havoc on the ground, many were too frighted to get into the air, and there was very few gryphons even shooting at you.
The A-10s swung around again to unleash another pass this time dropping their bombs and firing their rockets, depleting their stores and having to return back to Avalon to rearm.
 
This went on for ten minutes before Echo alerted you of something inbound.
"Rex, unknown object inbound. I can't classify it." Echo said as you looked at your radar and it classified it for you.
"Everyone climb above five thousand feet. It's a burst missile!" You say forcing everyone to climb up another three thousand feet.
"Time to impact two minutes. Come on climb!" You yell as there's a small timer on your hud predicting the impact time. Right now in your formation it's F-117s and Su-25s with a mix of Hornets and Migs.
Thankfully due to your timing there were no casualties due to their burst missile when it detonated a thousand feet below you.
"Rex what the hell was that? It's raining molten steel down here!" Celestia said via her radio.
"How the bloody hell did they get burst missiles? Echo can you figure out where they launched it from?" You say very clearly over your radio as you point your ADFX down and release burst missiles of your own into the ground troops, causing even more mayhem.
"Hold on, I'm trying. Damn it, they've launched another. Stay above five thousand feet." Echo said as you're now very frustrated at the fact the gryphons managed to thwart your attacks.
"All attack ponies fall back. Unless you're packing anti ship missiles, get out of here. This is multirole territory now." You say forcing your attackers back to home.
"What about us Dad?" Morgan asked
"We're on station for five more minutes. Then we're the hell out of here." You say letting another burst missile go.
"REX You said you'd provide cover!" Celestia said.
"I'm providing cover aren't I? I can't cut a path because of those damned burst missiles, I can't get close to the ground because of them. Celestia, fall back to a fortified position. I've got to get rid of those missiles. Then I can provide more adequate cover." You say watching Falken sweep more Gryphons with his laser.
"REX, don't you leave the area." Celestia said as you pointed the last of your fighters home.
"Rex, location of the launch facility found, you're not going to like where it is." Echo said as it was her turn to be on station.
"Where?" you ask wanting to end this now.
"The capitol. You don't have the fuel to reach it, and with the amount of AA around the base, it's a one pony operation." Echo said as you shudder at the thought of having to fly through the AA defense net to take it down, as you're not sending a single pony into that hell.
"Echo, everyone, RTB, I'll take those missiles out after I rearm and refuel. I'm going alone." You say
"Gah!" was what you heard from ground.
"Rex, are you sure you can pull it off?" Celestia asked in awe