“this is it fellas.”
tags: @johnskeating, @ryanseamans, @love-pyramus, @tommyinnitt, @thatsmycigarbutyoucanborrowit, @panicky-pancakes, @the-phoenix-or-the-flame, @babymushroomboy, @trans-witch-cauldron warnings: swearing, a nsfw joke, war, guns, violence??? idk it’s ww2 what do you expect- word count: 2144 words / 12034 characters note: i don’t know anything abt ww2 or historical shit so shut the FUCK up abt historical accuracy thank you <3 -- i based this all off of my new hyperfixation on unbroken, you can watch the scene i based it off of here. (but do it after the teaser!) this is a teaser for an upcoming fic, please be excited for it so i will work on it <3
The sun barely peaked above the clouds, casting a golden glow upon them and reflecting down onto the water. The morning sun was barely hot, however, sweat was already dripping down from Mouse’s face as she kept her hands steady around the plane. She sat upon a cushion, that way she could reach all the controls.
Nobody was sure how she got to her position of being in the Air Force at all, but nobody questioned it either. The last guy had to be taken to the infirmary. And nobody wanted to be the next patient.
Gunning the turret above her was Nick, both hands steady and eyes focused as he looked out over the horizon, getting into position as day broke and below him, a few feet away was Locks, navigating for them. Behind them, at the waist gunners were Switch and Fennel, standing back to back and never apart for too long.
At the tail of the plane, was Captain, gunning the turret back there and below him, in the belly turret was Spot.
Back at the front, beyond the pilot, was the nose turret, where Bruiser, a smooth-talking, trouble-loving Russian boy, who shot down more planes than they could count and saved their asses even more, was stationed. Finally, below him, which he thought was the most fitting placement, was Levi, or King as the others began to call him, who worked the bombs.
Steadily, the row of B-24s sailed with the clouds, slowly approaching the island ahead.
Their plane, which they’d dubbed Marked Monarch, was leading the line. A choice they hadn’t made. So, they were the first to see the lush field of green ahead of them. Mouse clicked into her headset. “We are here,” she stated clearly, waiting and listening to the crackle on the other line.
As many others across the plane adjusted their goggles and got into position, another voice cracked across the line, Half-Hitch. “This is it fellas.”
King lifted his face to the scope, pressing one eye in as he steadied it. “You get it Santos?” Mouse’s voice came in. “Roger.”
“If I hit this one, drinks are on me!” Switch called from his position, grinning as he gripped the turret. “I ain’t goin’ to a bar with you Melnikoff, you confuse all the women,” King muttered, zooming in on his target. His comment generated a laugh. As if anyone on that plane truly cared about wooing women, besides Mouse. Everyone else had their own boy to focus on somewhere. Not that anyone else knew. What happened on Marked Monarch, stayed on Marked Monarch. On that cramped hunk of metal, they became family. “Get your cameras fellas, I’m gonna light it up like Christmas,” King muttered, reaching over and flipping a few switches, getting everything prepared.
“Pilot to bombardier, your ship,” Mouse’s voice came through into his headset. “Bombardier to pilot, roger,” King replied before he leaned back, staring ahead out the window. “Bombardier to crew, bomb bay doors, open.” “Bay doors open!” Locks called back, watching as the doors opened in the torso of the plane, revealing the many bombs they had locked away.
As they continued forward, a flurry of bullets and blasts came at Marked Monarch, rattling the plane but not the people inside. They only pushed forward with more determination, Mouse’s grip on the handle tightening.
King groaned as he put his eye back up to the scope, trying to lock onto the island again and failing each time the plane rattled and shook the scope, losing sight. “Damnit,” he cursed, leaning away from the scope for a moment, hoping he could wait it out for a bit. The hits however, only got more frequent and harder, as they neared the island. In the top turret, Nick shook, spinning in his chair as bullets bounced off the plane. “Oh boy!” he exclaimed, still trying to get a good aim on the guns firing at them. Locks leaned towards the window, looking out just in time to see the other bomber beside them get hit, a loud boom echoing against their plane and fire exploding in the side of the bomber as it started to sink downwards.
Locks and Mouse exchanged a worried look but said nothing. There was no reason to panic. No reason yet.
More and more bullets racked the plane and King once again had his eye up to the scope, trying to hold it steady with one hand. “Come on, come on,” he murmured, gritting his teeth in frustration.
Mouse glanced down towards where King was working beneath them, unable to physically see him, but in her mind, she could see him trying to aim it clearly. “Come on Santos,” she muttered, glancing from the floor back to the windshield.
King finally lined up the scope with a set of buildings down on the island. They looked important. A shame they wouldn’t be around much longer. “There you are…” he muttered, locking it into position and quickly pressing a button. Behind and further below him, 6 bombs dropped from the bay, all on their way to the same building King had stared down only moments before.
“Bombs away!” he said with a small chuckle. “Bombardier to pilot, your ship.” “Roger,” Mouse came through on the other side as she began to turn the plane. “Okay, here we go…” King watched through his small windshield as the bombs dropped and hit the building dead on. A flash of light came from the building and it swept forward, clouds and smoke billowing out on top while the blast slightly shook the plane.
Locks laughed from his spot beside Mouse, letting out a long whistle. “Yeah,” Mouse muttered, watching the blast. “Just like Christmas.” King pushed down on the lever to close the bomb bay doors. However, it only whirred and remained still, no matter how much pressure he put on it. He continued trying to shove it down. “Uh oh,” he grunted, still forcing it down repeatedly, “bomb bay doors are stuck.” He then looked up, gaze catching sight of a small black dot, coming closer and closer towards them. As it drew nearer, it gained more shape. It wasn’t a dot.
It was a fighter. “Shit!” He hissed, clicking into the radio. “Zero inbound. 10 o’clock level.”
“Alright,” Bruiser’s voice clicked in after him, who began firing immediately as the plane zipped past them. “You gotta get those doors closed Santos,” Mouse dropped back in. “Roger.” King shuffled out of his seat, quickly standing up at a crouch and making his way down the catwalk, remaining low as he dropped the ladder back up behind him as he descended further on the catwalk, now in the empty bay. There was only a thin strip of metal keeping him from slipping off the edge. Below him were clear blue skies and a deep blue ocean. He grabbed a box of bandages, stuffing them into his jacket, figuring he’d need it. He gripped onto the nearby railings. “7 o’clock!” Shouts sounded from above King and more gunfire came with it. The Zero must’ve returned. It zipped by, bursts of air knocking against him. King gasped and ducked down, recoiling as bullets whipped by him, just barely missing his head and settling into the walls of the bomb bay.
Once the Zero passed, he stood up slowly, wary of his surroundings. Now… what was keeping the doors from shutting. The longer they were open, the more fuel they burned. King looked, realizing that when Mouse had turned their plane, the auxiliary fuel tanks had slid out of place, enough to block the doors and enough that they couldn’t be moved back into place. Not until they landed anyway. Until then, they were burning twice as much fuel and fast, and until then, the bomb bay was even more dangerous.
King moved forward down the catwalk, hoping somehow that the crank could still get the doors to close. He grabbed hold of it, repeatedly yanking on it, but the doors still didn’t move. He sighed, hanging his head out of the catwalk into the open air for a moment, watching the doors, squinting as he tried to figure out what else he could do until then. But as he did, another Zero, or maybe the same one, zipped by, firing again, the bullets going just by him and whistling as they collided with the wall. He ducked back inside, gently patting the back of his head, feeling around for metal or blood. King sighed thankfully when he realized there was nothing there.
“Santos! You gotta get inside!” Captain yelled from somewhere inside the plane. “Get inside!” However, King crouched there for a few more minutes, watching as Spot shot down the nearest Zero, a trail of smoke heading down towards the ocean. “Attaboy,” he muttered, grinning widely.
He eventually turned and ducked back onto the catwalk and hurried inside the plane at the sight of another Zero incoming, he yelled to Spot as he maneuvered back towards his position.
It whizzed by, blowing hot air through the open sides of the plane and shooting a flurry of bullets through the thin armor. King was lucky, he had ducked and been mostly out of the way, it had just skimmed his jacket. Switch, however, who was stumbling backwards, away from his turret and towards King, was not as lucky.
Switch hit the ground, holes ripped in both the front and back of jacket, small holes in his upper back and right side of his chest.
The older boy was lucky, it hadn’t hit his heart or any other vital organs. But it did cause a lot of pain. King held Switch up as he cried out in pain. “Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” he assured him as he tried to press a few bandages against the wounds under his shirt. “I know, I know. Just be brave now, alright? You’re still good-looking. You’re still very handsome,” he rambled, trying to keep Switch awake and out of panic.
He winced as the turret gunned by Fennel carried on blasting, a Zero racing by again. He pat Switch on the shoulder.
“You’ll be alright,” he promised, looking down across at Captain, who was slumped to the side at their position, still trying to work. King got up, glanced back over at Captain before turning, walking carefully across the bomb bay. Looking down at his feet placement but not beyond it. Usually, you wouldn’t look down, but when one wrong step could potentially send you flying into the ocean, you needed to be extra careful. As long as you didn’t stare at the ocean rather than the catwalk.
A nearby blast sounded, exploded beside the Mouse’s window and rocked the plane roughly. King was thrown to the side, gripping hard onto a support beam in the bomb bay. He gritted his teeth as he looked down, teetering over the edge of the catwalk. Any further and he would’ve been a goner, like the planes that littered the bright sea beneath them. “Oh boy,” Mouse muttered, only half-inconvenienced by the blast.
Chest heaving, King hauled himself up the ladder of the bomb bay, pulling it up after him as he crawled back to the cockpit, where Mouse, Locks and Nick were posted.
Locks had been helping them navigate but now he sat there, turned around to face him and panicked, face cut in a million different ways. He must’ve been hit by a blast of glass or bullets, one of the two.
“King…?” he asked between pants, eyes half closed as tears slipped down his cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, I’m right here,” he assured him quietly, pulling the rest of the bandages out of his shirt pocket and passing them up the Locks. “Take these. They’ll help.”
King looked up, Nick was still working just as hard, however blood soaked the side of his pant leg, deep red staining the pant and the chair he sat in.
“Nick?” King asked, looking up, watching the determined boy’s face as he fired away, trying to protect and defend Marked Monarch with his life; he wished that wasn’t the case.
Bullets pierced through the top of the plane, ricocheting off of the metal chair Nick sat in and bouncing away,
Another Zero flew by Marked Monarch, but a quick round of firing from Nick and Bruiser sent it tumbling down towards the sea.
Loud bangs sounded from the waist and King turned, watching as Fennel stood protectively over Switch while gunning down another plane. He could hear it’s engine as it began to crash down. A boom sounded as it hit the water. King shivered. That could’ve been them.
Finally, a voice crackled through on the other end of the headset, their general. “Nice work fellas.”
