Disclaimer: Ace Combat does not belong to me. It belongs to it's respective owners, namely Bandai Namco Entertainment.

Lake Harwood, Great Lakes, Osean Continent, Planet Earth.
17th October, 1949.

Seated within the cockpit of his F-86A Sabre, his brown leather gloves gripping the flight-stick and throttle as he manoeuvred his aircraft in close formation with the Captain and Garson, Second Lieutenant Theodore Matterson scanned the sky from left to right, and up, helped by the transparent canopy that allowed him all-round visibility around the aircraft.

To his right, there was the flight lead, Captain Patrick Berry, a veteran of the Osean War, the Halfway War with Imperial Sarroto and the South Belkan Border War with the Kingdom of Belka, and Berry's wingman, First Lieutenant Joseph Garson, a veteran of the Border War and one of Matterson's best friends since joining the 101st.

The sky looked all clear, as three Sabres of the Osean Air Force's 101st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, from the 204th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, continued on with their patrol in a Vic formation over Lake Harwood, one of the Great Lakes that bordered Osea with South Belka.
Their Sabres were fully loaded with 1,800 rounds of .50 calibre ammunition for their six M3 Browning nose guns, and when they had launched from Patrick Air Force Base, they were under the expectation that they could be engaged in a skirmish, for Belka sent it's own fighters regularly to the border with Osea, in a 'war of nerves' as the newspapers tended to call these series of border clashes.

But then, Matterson's thoughts were interrupted as he scanned the skies, when he saw them, to his left, far off in the distance, around four Me-262Cs in close formation, painted red and dark grey, on approach to Osean airspace.

Matterson reported in to Captain Berry over the mic, "Eagle Leader, this is Eagle Three. I have four Red Swallows at Angels Three Nine, on heading Four Two Three, at cruising speed".
A brief pause and then, "Roger, Eagle Three, I see them. All Eagles, keep close, I'll confront them and turn them back".

As the Captain manoeuvred his Sabre to confront the Me262s, Matterson kept in close formation behind the Captain with Joe on his right.

Matterson's body was all on autopilot as he followed the Captain and Joe towards the Belkans, who were still dangerously close to the border and showed absolutely no sign of making a turn.
However, Matterson reminded himself that Belkan aircraft were reported to suddenly and sharply turn back to Belka without any prior warning whatsoever, whenever they probed the border.

But this time, the Belkans were not doing that, and were now across the border.

With this violation into Osean airspace, Captain Berry could be heard cursing, before he set his radio over to the Belkan frequency, in an attempt to warn them off.

Then, he made his warning clear, as his stern, commanding voice made it's presence known on the net,
"Attention, Belkan Air Force aircraft, you are intruding into Osean airspace. Turn your craft on heading Seven Eight Zero and leave the airspace immediately. I repeat, turn your aircraft on a heading of Seven Eight Zero and leave the airspace immediately".

But as Captain Berry made another warning, with the threat that they would open fire if they did not turn back, the four Me-262s suddenly split off, with a pair of two aircraft sticking together as they moved in different directions.

Gripping his flight stick, Matterson and Joe attempted to follow them, but Captain Berry barked out, "Stay in formation, you two! Do not break off! That's an order!"
Joe was incensed, "But, Captain! They'll be all over us!", but the Captain was not having any of it, "I repeat, do not break from the formation. That is an order!"

Joe did not get a chance to protest further, when the Me262s managed to manoeuvre themselves into a firing position behind each Sabre, and open fire.

Immediately, Matterson sprang into action, "They're shooting at us! Captain Berry, they're shooting at us!"
"Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that, thank you very much, Lieutenant. Alright, that does it. All Eagles, drop tanks!"

As Berry and Garson released their fuel tanks, Matterson flicked a switch on his Sabre and his two 760 litre drop tanks were released from it's pylons by a series of explosive bolts.

Then Captain Berry said the order they had been waiting for,
"All Eagles, break! Break and engage!"

Matterson pulled his flight stick to the left and the real battle began.

As soon as his Sabre could be allowed to engage the Belkans at will, Matterson looked around to find a target and found two Me262s, swarming all over Joe.
He noticed that one Me262 was in hot pursuit, while his wingman was keeping a close distance. Matterson would have to deal with the wingman first before getting Joe some help, so with automatic movements, he manoeuvred his Sabre over and swooped in on the Me262, hoping to gun him from behind.

Lining up his eye with the gunsight on his Sabre, Matterson awaited for the moment to strike, and when the Me262 was in the gunsight, he pulled the trigger on his flight stick.

But he only struck the tail, and immediately the Me262 pulled up, too quickly for him to counter.
Matterson cursed, remembering that these Me262s were the Me262C, not the Me262As that had flown during the Border War.
Still the same airframe, but much improved from the original, having much more swept wing and the turbojets embedded within the wing roots.

So, Matterson swooshed right by and descended.

Looking around, he then saw the Me262 he shot at, stop pulling up and suddenly diving down towards his tail.
Matterson yanked the stick to wiggle the Sabre around, just as the Me262 fired it's nose cannons.

And immediately, Matterson's Sabre was struck in the left wing, with a few rounds skimming it.

With this, Matterson knew that the Belkan had the advantage and would not let him escape easily to get into an position to take him down, so he did the last thing that the Belkan expected.

He braked, using the Sabre's airbrakes to full advantage as his aircraft slowed right down in the midst of the dive.
And within a few seconds, the Belkan pilot must have been astonished and immediately acted to save himself, as he sharply shot over Matterson.

Jackpot, thought Matterson, as he lined up the shot and opened fire at the belly.

Immediately, the rounds hit their target and the Me262 was trailing smoke in it's left engine, indicating that a vital component in the turbojet had been hit.
Plus, the Me262 was also wavering around, and Matterson, when he manoeuvred to get another better shot, saw that the cockpit had streaks of red blood spatter all over the canopy, meaning that the pilot had been hit.

And then, Matterson found that there was no need to go in for the kill, as the Me262 was suddenly spiralling down to the ground, out of control.
Satisfied that he'd be crashing into Lake Harwood, Matterson swung his Sabre around and found Captain Berry and Joe in a spot of bother with two Me262s on their tail, while the third was nowhere to be seen.

As he went to go get them out, Matterson scanned the skies for the third one, finding no sign of him, before turning his focus onto the two Me262s.

He lined up the gunsights on the left Me262, which was all over Captain Berry, and fired, but found no hits.
So he tried again, only to suddenly be surprised by 30 mm autocannon rounds rushing in, all around him.

Turning his head towards the sun, on his left, he then could see through his squinting eyes, the Me262 diving down right at him, nose cannons blazing.
And those rounds struck right through his wings and the fuselage.

Soon, smoke started trailing from the Sabre and no matter how much effort Matterson was grunting, trying to put as much strength as he could into pulling the stick around, the Sabre was falling.

He kept on doing this, until he realised that it was fruitless to save his aircraft and elected to eject.

But as he reached for his ejector seat trigger, that was underneath a right handgrip, the Sabre exploded in a ball of flame and Second Lieutenant Theodore Matterson's world suddenly turned to black amidst flame.

And this starts my first try into Ace Combat, a game series that I have a great fondness for.

The Me 262C in this story, is based of the Me 262 HG III, a idea from Willy Messerschmitt to experiment on the swept wings of the 262, by sweeping them back further than the original 262, which were around 18.5 degrees.
Thus, the wings were around swept back 45 degrees, and the engines were located in the wing roots.
The formation of the three Sabres and the four Me-262s during the skirmish, are meant to detail the disadvantages of the vic-formation and the advantages of the finger-four formation, as demonstrated during the Battle of Britain.

Anyways, don't forget to leave a review whenever you can, and see you next time!

Update (17/10/17): Gave a bit more detail on the Me262C in the story, as it was initially not clear on whenever these were the generic Me262, or the Me262C that I had described in my author's notes. Special thanks to aga04 for pointing this out!