It wasn't very hard to find a legendary ace pilot, let alone one that used to be a royalty who, by all accounts, should be considered no less than a king of a nation itself.

Mihaly A. Shilage (I'm not even gonna try to say his full name) seemed to be even older than I first imagined. It's hard to imagine that the guy used to be the top ace of the Erusea Air Force who ruled the sky like he owns all of it, and it was him who claimed so many lives of my dearest friend throughout the so-called "Lighthouse War".

It was only a month since then, but to me, it felt like a lot longer than that. Yet I still remember our last encounter quite well.

Since I was having a day off after helping my friends in the LRSSG repair the damage we have done to Shilage during the war, I figured I might as well pay him a visit.

"You look terrible, old man."

I said, looking at the old man lying in his bed pithily. This was not a fate any ace pilot should have been in, regardless of what he had done.

Mihaly smiled bitterly in response. I can sense that he's observing me like he's trying to analyze what kind of a man I really am, just like he did once when we both fly the same skies together. Old habits die hard, I guess.

"So we finally meet face to face, the pilot with the Three Strikes," Mihaly finally said, "I'm sorry I couldn't get up to greet you myself. Curse my stupid back."

"Well, I guess I kinda owe you an apology for that," I said sheepishly, though I didn't really mean it that much. The guy was a pain in my ass throughout the entire war, after all.

"So I assume I have you to thank for putting an end to this pointless war?" Mihaly asked.

"Technically, the princess did most of the work. She did have an effect on people, after all," I admitted, "but then again, it was her who started this whole mess in the first place. Even if she was being manipulated by some radicals in her government, it was still her decision to go to war with us."

That earned a small chuckle from Mihaly.

"Princess Cossette made a terrible mistake, just like I did when I signed up for the drone project," He began, "I will not condone her for what she had done. We started this war and now we suffer the consequences, just as how it should be. What I will say is that there is still a chance for her to atone for it. I thank you for giving her that chance. She has been a good friend to my granddaughters."

I stayed silent. Mihaly didn't really strike me as the caring type. With the way he flew in battle, the way he aggressively terrorized his prey, the way he stalked and hunted down my wingmen, you'd think that he is a demon in human form. Of course, Osea did have a lot of pretty good demon tales.

"Why are you really here, young man?" Mihaly asked, though there was no hatred in his voice.

Why am I here? I don't even know it myself.

Perhaps it's to finally meet the legendary ace who gave me the fight of my life. Perhaps it's just me wanting to look into the eyes of a murderer who killed many of my friends.

Perhaps it's both.

"A good friend of mine said she knew you," I began, remembering the day just after the war ended, when Avril Mead – the so-called "Scrap Queen" - introduced me to Mihaly's granddaughters, "I was an ace pilot in a world that no longer needs one, so I have nothing to do right now. You could say I was bored being stuck here on the ground. So I figured: 'why not go meet a man who almost killed me several times?' "

Mihaly chuckled again. If I had to guess, he seemed to be quite proud of himself to have almost killed me every time we ran into each other.

"I never did really find out the meaning behind your emblem, Three Strikes." Mihaly spoke.

"You're just not gonna call me by my real name, aren't you?"

"Names aren't what I'm interested in."

"Heh."

Well, to be fair, nobody ever really cares what my name is, anyway. To everyone, I'm either "Trigger" or "the pilot with the Three Strikes". They have their charms, though, so I don't really mind much.

"When we first fought each other, back in the Yinshi Valley," I began. "I was flying in a penal unit. Those 'three strikes' are actually sin lines, or so my wingmen have told me. I got them because I was accused of killing the former president. I was pretty 'popular' at the hellhole I was thrown into because I was the only one who got 'three strikes' there. Heh, as if it's something I should be proud of."

Mihaly listened quietly, though I saw curiosity in his eyes. I wondered what he felt like, realizing that the one pilot who defeated him was a mere ex-convict.

"Anyway, after a few more victories, I got transferred out. My name got cleared, but the emblem struck with me so I decided to fashion it a little. And the rest is history. I never intended for it to have any meaning, it's up to everybody else to decide what it stood for."

"Interesting." Mihaly finally said, his eyes still studied me. "In that valley, that was the first time I ever missed a shot and the first time someone successfully shot me. I suppose it's not that surprising that you would be the one destined to bring me down."

"What can I say, I had no other choice," I told him, my mind racing back to that fateful day when I fought him in a thunderstorm cloud so my allies could retreat. I could still hear the lightning strikes when it struck my plane, "someone has to stop you from cutting through everyone like a hot knife through butter. I was the only one crazy enough to do it. To be honest I didn't think I would make it out alive myself. Back then, the only thing on my mind was just to survive."

"You will be surprised how many of the world's greatest aces began by just trying to survive."

"You made it sounded like a trial by fire is needed for every pilot to become something greater."

"I already told you back then, young man," Mihaly replied, "a true ace has to be tested to his or her limits, to see whether they are worthy or not. They will be pushed into something they never faced before, something that will test their endurance and will to survive. Either they make it out alive and become stronger from it, or they die trying."

"Like how you shot down a defenseless young girl whose plane was already damaged and posed no threat?" I finally mustered the courage to ask, suddenly remembering a close friend of mine who lost her life to this...this predator.

"I was there as well, you know? May 30th. Chopinburg. Our air force was almost decimated by an Arsenal Bird and its drones, but it wasn't those things that devastated me the most."

Brownie.

I can forgive him for killing Champ. The guy was asking for it anyway. I can forgive him for killing Wiseman. He knew the risks. We both knew the risks and what we were going into when we decided to engage Mihaly over the skies of Farbanti.

But Brownie…the poor girl was scared out of her mind when Mihaly finally shot her down. She didn't deserve any of what Mihaly put her through.

I realized that in war, people are going to die. That doesn't make any easier to accept it, though.

She was crying out for me to help, and as much as I wanted to, I was not able to save her in time.

"One of the pilots you shot down in that mission was a good friend of mine." I said, trying to keep my voice calm, but deep down some of my hatred still lingers, even after all this time, "I heard her screaming over the radio, begging for someone to support her. She was just about to leave the area with another ally when you showed up."

"The pilot with the damaged plane," Mihaly spoke, before nodding a little, "I'm sorry for that."

That's it. Just a simple sorry. Just a simple nod. Just these two things to acknowledge the fact that he has taken the life of a non-combatant who was way out of her league.

"I won't hold it against you, Mihaly. I'm sure you did what you had to. I just wanted you to know about it." I said coldly. For a moment, my sympathy for the crippled man was gone. All I saw is a killer who got away with his murder.

"…Sometimes, we don't get to choose who our targets are. You should know that when you and your friends raided my castle and the refugees in it," I heard Mihaly spoke, his voice sounded strained and bitter.

Have to admit, I wasn't very proud of that. Fuel and food were almost empty. We had to do what must be done to survive, even if it meant taking from the refugees.

God, I still hated myself for being part of that.

Mihaly stayed silent for a long while. I decided to divert my attention to a nearby cabinet. There was a picture frame on it. Mihaly's granddaughters were sitting next to each other all smiling. Next to them was a man I didn't recognize.

"There was a pilot much like you back then. Erusean forces called him 'The Ribbon'," Mihaly continued, "That man in the picture? He was my best and brightest student, and the Ribbon shot him down during the last war. His body was never found."

Mihaly's face remained stoic, yet I can see the crack beneath the surface.

I heard a few tales of the "The Ribbon Fighter" myself. The legendary pilot who singlehandedly turned the tide of the Usean Continental War. He was the reason we only had one Stonehenge turret to deal with the Arsenal Bird during this war.

Just my kind of pilot.

"My greatest regret was that I never had a chance to fight him." Mihaly finally continued, "An enemy bomber devastated the airbase I was stationed in before I managed to get into my plane early into the war. The explosion left me in a coma. By the time I healed, the war was already over. My students fought the war in my place, but all of them fell against the Ribbon."

Mihaly's students. That reminded me of the Erusean pilot that fought alongside me against those drones at the Lighthouse…and lost his life for it.

"I'm sorry about Wit."

I spoke. It was the least I could do. We all lost someone we cared about in these pointless wars.

Mihaly nodded slowly, "He died as he lived, in the sky that pilots like us called home. I couldn't have been more proud."

Another silence.

One of Mihaly's granddaughters – Ionela - walked into the room. In her hands is a dinner plate along with some medicine. She shot me a look that was both accusing and accepting. I'm sure she knew that it was me who crippled her grandfather. She didn't like having me here at all, but she accepted that it was her grandfather's choice that made him ended up like this.

I wondered what happened to Ionela and Alma's parents, though. Never saw them anywhere. I'd ask Mihaly about it, but I realize it might have been a too personal topic for him, so I stayed quiet.

"Please excuse me for a moment." Mihaly said. He turned to receive the plate from Ionela and gave her a gentle pat on her head.

It's easy to forget in a war, every soldier is also a person who has loved ones. Throughout the war, I'd probably killed my fair share of "Brownies" on the other side as well.

There's always a Brownie, or a Wiseman, or a Wit, who had to die simply because they fought in a war they weren't lucky enough to survive.

Somehow, it made me feel a bit glad that at least Mihaly was still alive to be there with his granddaughters. I can't imagine how those girls would live without him.

After chatting with her grandfather for a while, Ionela left the room. Mihaly's smile faded as soon as she's out of his sight.

"I have to say, Mihaly. You're not quite like what I was expecting."

"Oh, what gives you that impression then, young man?"

"Those scars of yours," I observed the scars on his face. "You didn't get them from flying, and certainly not from our little fight together last month."

Mihaly didn't answer right then. Instead, he just turned to look outside the windows, towards the castle on the hill that used to be his.

"Shilage was a troubled nation long before we became part of Erusea," He finally said, "These scars are just the reminders of a long-forgotten conflict that never amounted to anything in the end."

Somehow, I suspected Mihaly wasn't just talking about the war back then.

Even before the Lighthouse War started, I lost count of how many conflicts that started and ended in our pitiful little planet. There was the Belkan War back then. Usea had two civil wars. Erusea tried to take over all of Usea but ended up getting its own ass kicked long before this whole mess started. Both the Circum-Pacific War and the Anean Continental War happened just five years away from each other. And then there was this whole mess that is the Lighthouse War.

All these wars, and for what? There'll just gonna be more conflict in the future days to come.

"Those drones. I already put a stop to them, just like you asked." I said.

"Yet deep down, you know that somewhere, someone is already working on perfecting the model," Mihaly replied, "and eventually, they will succeed, and there might be no one capable of stopping them this time."

I can only give a little nod in response. Mihaly was right. Even without the threat of the drones, we'll just end up fighting each other again sooner or later given the chance, and they can't count on us to solve their mess every time. Aces like us won't be flying forever. We're all grounded sooner or later.

But…

"There will always be new aces in the sky," I said, "you said it yourself, didn't you? 'There are pilots like you in every generation'. Even if we cannot stop them, there will always be someone who can. The skies don't belong only to us. We just got to have faith in the newer generation to get the job done."

This time, Mihaly actually smiled for real.

"I guess that's all we can do, then."

For once, Mihaly seemed like a normal guy. A kind old man with failing health who longed for the lost glories of the past. I can understand that.

"It was nice talking with you, Mihaly. I hope for the best for you and your granddaughters." I spoke, actually smiling back to the old man this time.

Before I left the room, however, Mihaly has one last surprise for me.

"She managed to bail out, you know?" Mihaly spoke.

That made me stop dead in my tracks.

"What are you talking about?"

"The pilot in the damaged plane."

.

.

.

What?

Seeing the confused look on my face, Mihaly continued.

"I just shot at the wings of her plane. She managed to bail out just in time. I saw her parachuting down into the rainforest below. Not that it helped her much, though, she parachuted right into the Erusean-controlled territory."

I quickly turned back to face Mihaly, silently demanding answers from him.

"Some of your pilots downed during the battle over Chopinburg are still alive. The last thing I heard, they were being taken away to a POW camp somewhere south of San Salvacion. I don't know what happened to them after the satellites went down, though."

There was a big silence as I tried to process what Mihaly just told me. I didn't actually see Brownie getting shot down. I was too busy saving the other pilots from the drones as well as keeping myself alive.

Was there actually a chance that Brownie was in fact alive? Or was this old man just messing with me?

"Why would you tell me this?"

"I'm a soldier, not a mercenary," Mihaly explained, "I know a defenseless target when I see one. An opponent that does not provide any challenge is one that is not worth killing. I just wanted you to know about it."

Turning my own words against me. Touché.

Mihaly smiled slightly. I imagined he must've noticed my eyes lighting up.

"Thank you for telling me this," I finally spoke, "Mister X."

Mihaly nodded, "See you in the sky somewhere, Three Strikes."

The sky never looked so brighter after I left Mihaly's home. I immediately pulled out my phone and called one of my friends in the air force.

"Hey, it's me," I spoke, my voice barely contained the excitement, "I just learned some very good news today, but I need you to confirm it for me. I heard you have some experience dealing with POW camps before."

The person on the line was an old instructor of mine back when I was in flight school: a hardass one at that, but we remained pretty good friends after I finished the class.

"Yes, an Erusean POW camp south of San Salvacion. I have a feeling a friend of mine might be there…No, I don't know what happened to it after the satellites went down. The area's still in chaos until now…I heard the Yukes are going to provide relief efforts in the area tomorrow and that your girl might be there…wait…what do you mean she broke your heart again? Come on, Jack, pull yourself together, man!"

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Author's note: Hi! Long time no see, guys. This is the first story I submitted since...forever I guess? First of all, I would like to apologize for any story that I abandoned for so long. It's just that I was burnt out from everything, from college and personal problems. I have trouble trying to come up with new stories and I simply just stopped. I just have no desire to write for a long, long time. It was only when after I finished college that I decided to have another shot at this writing thing. Though I probably won't continue the other stories in a while, I'm inspired to write something else other than fanfics.

I still have to work on my grammar, though, and expand the range of my word uses. I still tend to repeat pronouns and such, making long dialogues kind weird to read through, but I'll keep practicing. I promised myself I won't stop writing this time, and I meant to keep it this time.

About this little story? I'm inspired to write it after I finished Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. That game was AWESOME. Ace Combat has been a large part of my childhood and I'm very excited that it's finally coming back in full form with this new game. Though it's not perfect, I was having a pretty good time playing it. The only major complaint I have about the story is that many characters are simply too underused or killed off anticlimactically. As you can probably guess in the ending, I'm just writing this fic as an excuse to bring one of those characters back alive, (Poor Brownie...T-T) especially when the game didn't explicitly shows her plane exploding. Plus I wanted to explore the idea of how aces of previous games would think when wars keep happening, again and again, in the chaotic world that is Strangereal.

Thank you again for reading, guys! I might make more Ace Combat fanfics in the future, but right now I'll have to find a job first xD. God, it sucks growing up lol.