Gamma flight and the rest of Omega flight transformed into their fighter modes and let loose with a volley of missiles from their racks, targeting the launching and inactive Valkyries in an attempt to whittle down the number of enemies that had to be dealt with. Explosions littered the revetments where fighter lay stationary, and fires began to burn among the riddled debris. Gamma Flight then charged straight into the enemy formations, and everything became chaos. Gamma One and Two split off from Three and Four, and the fougth in pairs. always covering each other. Tracers and missiles streaked through the air as the battle was fought. In the first thirty seconds, Gamma flight shot down six enemy fighters overall.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, after firing their missiles, Micheal and Ashley turned and engaged an airborne formation of four VF-25F Messiahs, and bit hard into the enemy formation, their guns ripping through wings and fuselages like chainsaws through brush. Thus both had their first kills. While both had prior aerial combat experience, this was still their first serious battle. But both had already experienced what killing had felt like, and so they pushed the regret of killing out of their minds and performed their jobs. However, both nearly made the mistake of focusing too hard on their enemies as a VF-25S Model Messiah, an ace snuck up on them and nearly killed them both. A quick warning from Emile, who'd been experiencing a sort of heightened battlefield awareness, saved them from certain death, and they maneuvered defensively, dodging the two bursts of 58mm from it's GU-17A Gun pod by a mere few feet. If that warning had come even a quarter of a second later, both pilots would likely be dead.<br/><br/>In response, both Micheal and Ashley turned on the enemy ace and lit him right up with their twin rapid-fire railguns. The ace rolled right out of the path of the sustained fire before transforming into it's battleoid mode and let loose with a volley of missiles. Micheal kept a cool head, tranforming into guardian mode and shot the missiles headed his way right of of the sky with a sustained burst burst of fire from his guns before letting loose with his own cloud of missiles in response. Ashley however, panicked and broke off in an attempt to outrun the missiles locked onto her, only to be saved as Gamma One and Two flew past and shot those missiles out of the sky.<br/><br/>The enemy ace attempted to shoot the missiles coming their way out of the sky as well, but wasn't fast enough to get them all, and three impacted in the battleoid's center torso, blasting the Valkyrie in half. Micheal formed back up with Ashley afterward and they continued the fight. Emile was getting lucky. He already had three kills, not counting the four inactive Valkyries he'd destroyed in their revetments. His battlefield awareness was awarding him quite a bit. He also had some instinct for tactical maneuvering and timing his transformations almost perfectly. He'd chased an entire four-man squadron of VF-171 Nightmares off of your tail and managed to eliminate two of them, and was in the middle of engaging the second pair. As he maneuvered out of the path of a burst of gunfire, he transformed into guardian mode and blasted one of his opponents with his beam-rifle pod, spearing it through the center of the fuselage, the shot folding the fighter in half before the resulting explosion disintegrated the enemy fighter. He followed up with a missile volley that chased and disintegrated the fourth fighter.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">But as the battle was only beginning, back behind the same moon as before, the fleet hidden there was slowly coming to life as formations of Sv-262, VF-25 Messiah, and VF-31 Kairos fighters slowly gathered around the eight similar ships. The ninth ship however, was still dark until a bay door on the bottom opened and three sleek shapes streaked out of it before the bay closed again. The three shapes were obviously fighters, but of a design never before seen. Their path lead straight to Ragna.</span>