Once I was in the cockpit, I slammed the cockpit canopy shut and pulled my helmet on, before slipping the breathing mask over my face and linking it to the helmet plates. Once I had succesfully completed that ask, I plugged the link cable into the oxygen receiver and waited for it to start flowing.

Moments later, I looked over to a member of ground crew, who nodded. I nodded back, indicating 'clear to go'. The figure on the ground nodded, and turned a switch on a device. Moments later, the electrical systems onboard the aircraft began to flicker into life. Switches activated and dials turned, followed by electronic displays firing up and displaying a random assortment of numbers before switching back to zero. Moments after that, I noticed other displays in the cockpit start to light up. This machine was slowly coming to life.

A loud whirring noise confirmed the engine fuel pump was now running. Handily, they'd stored these aircraft fully fuelled, so that at least made my job easier.

Moments later, beeping sounded to inform me that I was cleared to check flaps. I moved the stick back and forth to check the control surfaces were moving properly. Clearly years of playing flight simulators had paid off on that front.

I then glanced to the displays again and saw the fuel pump was finished with priming the engines. I glanced about and found a red box marked ENGINE START. I flipped the switch up, and punched the button underneath.

With a loud roar, both of the jet's engines suddenly roared into life, twin jets forming behind the two aircraft. This felt fantastic. This had always been something I wanted to do, and now I had finally gotten a chance to do it. Admittedly, I jad never thought I'd do it for the first time as a pony, but there you go. Life often turns in weird directions.

I was directed forward by the ground crew, who sent me towards the runway. I nodded, and waited for them to drop back before I pushed the throttle forward. The engines responded almost immediately, and I pushed the aircraft onto the tarmac and turned it to the left, before taking another turn to the right.

"Viper One, this is tower, you are Cleared for Takeoff. Good hunting, over."

"Towe, this is Viper One, understood and confirm. Out." I looked down and pushed the engines to full power. As we thundered down the runway, you can probably guess what was playing in my head as the aircraft throttled up to maximum speed.

Must say, having a runway at such a high altitude was certainly a good idea, as the jet didn't need to do much climbing. As the end of the runway approached, I glanced down. "V1."

I was up to the point of no return, and already the acceleration was making it feel like my eyes were being pushed back. Then again, a military aircraft would probably be able to take off faster than an airliner.

"Rotate."

I pulled the stick back, and with a lurch the jet was off the ground and climbing into the sky. I tried to set a level climb angle to avoid stalling the aircraft, but that was less of an issue as the engines on this thing were pretty powerful.

As I looked around, I realised I had technically achieved my objective from all this time. I was flying.

Admittedly, it wasn't with my own wings, which were neatly tucked behind me, but I was in the air, in a sort of pegasus. After all, a plane is basically a metal pegasus.

Before I could continue reflecting, the cockpit began beeping again, and I got a missile lock tone.

"What the?"

I punched flares and turned the jet as fast as I could just to see another aircraft fly past. "We got bogies!"

I began to climb to try and avoid him, but the aircraft chasing was moving at similar speeds and climbing at a similar rate. My display once again was lit up by a missile lock tone.

"Oh shit. Diving!"

I pushed the stick down and put the aircraft into a dive. I really could have done without this today.

Suddenly, the radio buzzed. "Zipp? You there?"

"Yeah?" I said.

"Break off attack. Let the veterans handle this."

As I looked back, I suddenly saw five aircraft roar past. "Is that you?"

"I got the gang back together," dad replied. "We'll deal with the remaining fighters, you intercept that missile."

Dad had mentioned he was a former fighter pilot. Clearly this was in the blood.

"Understood. Be careful, OK?"

"Of course. It's generally considered bad luck to die for your country twice."

I pulled away from the ongoing furball and climbed into the sky to try and find that missile. Clearly shooting it down would be a tall order, but I had to do it, or else the world would be a worse place.

I punched the engines to maximum power and rolled the aircraft forward to chase down the enemy. I adjusted the angle of approach as I needed to be climbing to land the best attack. If I was lucky the missile was still climbing and was yet to exit the atmosphere.

I continued to climb, higher and higher. I had to wonder what this thing's service ceiling was, but hopefully locking the target wouldn't be too difficult at these speeds.

Just then, it appeared on my display. It was still climbing, and still gaining speed. I formed up underneath it and began to shoot up vertically, my speed beginning to fluctuate at I caught up to the missile.

I was moving in right underneath the engine rocket trail. This was the most vulnerable part of the construct, and if this was damaged the warhead would fall to earth, unable to detonate.

The lock tone engaged, and I flicked switches to ready to fire. I had to get close to ensure the missiles didn't get melted by the engines, so I held my breath.

Then, the flames appeared in front of me. I was getting too close!

I punched both fire switches, and four long range missiles were fired off. I hit the speed brakes and then turned the jet downwards, diving towards the ground.

There was a moment of silence as my senses returned, but then my software confirmed that the missiles had impacted. Explosions above me confirmed the missiles had hit the target, so... I'd actually done it.

I pushed the nose down further to return to a more normal flight level, and then radioed base. "Tower, this is Viper 1. Target is destroyed. Returning to base."

Once I had returned to the palace, it turned out that we had somehow achieved a miracle.

Not only were all of us still alive, but we'd somehow averted global disaster. Mom and her team had succeeded in detonating the missiles that had been launched, and the other tribes had succeeded in cancelling their own missiles, so we had narrowly succeeded in averting the end of the world.

Mom then looked at me with a serious look. "Zipp, why are you in a pilot's uniform?"

Oh snap. I was in trouble now. "Well, uhh, you see now, I-"

Dad then stepped forward. "Zipp answered the call. She, without any prompting, took a fighter jet and shot down one of the missiles. Of course, I did a bit of dogfighting myself, but apart from that it all went pretty well. Bandits splashed, driven off with two turns of a greased watermelon. The blighters snitched a parcel sausage-end and went goose over stump frogside."

I just glanced at mom with a confused look, and she looked back just as confused. I turned my attention to dad. "I don't mean to be rude... but I didn't understand a word of that."

Dad looked stunned. "Really? I thought you all spoke Ponish in here?"

Mom then raised some more concerns to us. "The news isn't all good, I'm afraid. Gulfstream made a right mess of the launch system for the missiles, and as a result we can't access the rest of the arsenal. We're still working on getting that fixed as we speak, but we also found something a bit more worrying."

She led us over to a computer terminal, and showed something. "It shows here that, shortly before we breached the palace, Gulfstream sent out a distress call to somepony or other. But I cannot figure out precisely who based on this. I can only assume he had an ally in this world somewhere against whom we are to fight at this rate."

I looked at the words on the display. Jinkies? That's an odd word, but I-

Wait. Oh Faust no. Not him. No no no no no no NO!

Mom noticed my apparent distress. "What's wrong, Zipp?"

"How can he be here?" I squeaked, my voice cracking under the strain.

Just then, the screens lit up, and the last face I had wanted to see in G5 Equestria appeared upon it.

Author's Note

Well, hello, and welcome to the last chapter in this series for a bit. For this chapter, I decided to take a bit of inspiration from aviation movies, particularly Top Gun (1986). I also inserted references to other media into proceedings for you to spot.

The missile takedown is based on a level in the 2011 game Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, where the player takes out an ICBM in the same manner.

As for the finale... you probably know who has appeared in that screen, but I won't spoil anything.