Azur Lane: Dragon Rising

Ch20: A Flight To Remember (3)

After eating and fully recovering, we begin preparing for departure. Deploying five J-16s and five Su-57s, I run over final checks as a crowd gathers to watch us depart. Deciding to give them a little show, I have the Su-57s take off first, even before we begin making final preparations to leave. This earns oohs, aahs and cheering from the girls gathered as they watch the five take off simultaneously.

Laughing, I help Elizabeth into our aircraft before waving goodbye to the others. I'd have helped Anchorage as well but Dalian has already secured her in Hood's jet and now they are taxiing towards the runway. As always, Elizabeth and I are last but I am not about to make that deter me from getting off the ground first.

Challenging Dalian to a race, I get strapped in quickly before blasting off down the taxiway. Skipping the runway entirely, I manage to take off from the taxiway long before Dalian manages to take up her position on the runway. Elizabeth screams in the back but quickly calms down once I begin teasing her.

Unlike before, this time, I decide to leave everyone else behind. The others, at first, try to catch up to me but as I had a large head start, they were forced to concede and travel together. Furthermore, unlike my aircraft which had external fuel to rely on as well as its own, theirs did not and as such, they could never hope to match my speed as I burned through 3/4 of the fuel using the afterburner. Thanks to this, I arrived at our destination long before the expected time.

We have already descended and are thundering just below the clouds when the plane detects the first enemy. Not deterred, I continue forward but as we draw closer, more and more just keep appearing out of the blue. Normally, I would have no trouble handling this but I certainly can't do it currently, at least not in my current form.

Me: [Up for a little fun?]

Elizabeth: [What do you have in mind?]

Me: [Something similar to what we did to buy the fleet time to retreat.]

Elizabeth: [Ooh. You want us to fight together again, side by side? Like a pair?]

Me: [That's the plan. We could of course just fly over the blockade but I think it'll be more interesting to break it by ourselves. If necessary, we can always retreat.]

She considers it for a while before finally agreeing. Then, to her horror, the plane ejects us. I'm not sure how she expected us to get out of the plane without having anywhere to land but her reaction says she certainly wasn't expecting this. Still, there is no time to waste and I quickly summon my ship below us.

We both land successfully but before I can begin making preparations, the plane I had just left reports that the enemy is withdrawing. When I pass this on to Elizabeth, she insists that we give chase but even I know better than to press my luck. It's quite possible that they saw my plane and assumed they were about to be outflanked by a large enemy force. There's no use endangering ourselves by pursuing them unnecessarily until they realize they've made a mistake and turn around and attack. Still, Elizabeth won't give in so I decide to resort to other means to convince her.

Me: I thought you wanted to explore Royal Navy with me. It'd be a shame if I had to explore it without a guide. Though I suppose I could always just go with Dalian instead.

This catches her full attention and I barely manage to shift to my KANSEN form before she's dragging me off towards Liverpool. Laughing as she pulls me along, I poke her side causing her to squeal. She turns to respond but is cut off by a loud voice echoing across the waves.

????: Elizabeth! Is that you?

Elizabeth tenses but even though she doesn't respond, the person quickly arrives and lifts her up into the air. She protests but her small form is all but a toy in the hands of this behemoth of a being. I can only watch, utterly taken aback, as she continues spinning Elizabeth until she finally relents and hugs her back.

????: Oh, forgive me. Where are my manners? I am King George V and you've arrived at the perfect time. Thanks to you, we've broken their blockade!