Authors note: This is a collaberation between myself and Goldenarbiter. Now please, everyone enjoy!

Prologue: Takeoff

The sun shone brightly over Fort Lauderdale as the crew of Flight 19 were preparing for takeoff. Well, mostly preparing. Takeoff was scheduled for 13:45 and thirteen of the fourteen pilots were sitting were sitting in the briefing room as the clock ticked to 13:50. Their squadron leader had yet to show up and the fifteenth man had special permission not to fly today. Aviation Ordinance Man Third Class George Devlin , one of the instructors, was the first to speak, “Typical Taylor, he’s always late. Remember this rookies, he’s always late and he loves to fly by the seat of his pants...”

The door swung open and Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor walked in. “Yes I do, George. That’s how you log over three thousand flight hours. Now, lets go. You all know the drill, Navigation problem No. 1.”

The flight was nothing but a routine navigation and combat training exercise. The assignment was called “Navigation problem No. 1”, a combination of bombing and navigation. Throughout the day, several of these flights had taken place, and Flight 19 was the last to fly. The pilots lugged themselves out of the room and out onto the tarmac. Lined up in a slanted rows lay the pilots' planes. Four TBM-1C torpedo bombers and one TBM-3 torpedo bomber, the latter being Taylor’s plane. The only difference being that the TBM-3 was able to sustain a slightly longer flight. Each aircraft was fully fueled, and during pre-flight checks it was discovered they were all missing clocks. Navigation of the route was intended to teach dead reckoning principles, which involved calculating, among other things, elapsed time. The apparent lack of timekeeping equipment was not a cause for concern as it was assumed each man had his own watch.

Taylor’s voice rattled to life over the radio, “Alright rookies, start up your engines.” a chorus of stuttering then roaring engines was the reply. “Control, this is Flight 19, requesting permission for takeoff.”

“Roger Flight 19, this is Tower, the strip is yours. Have a nice flight,” droned a dull voice.

“Thank you Tower, have a nice day. Alright, Gerber? Take us out, you’re flight lead,” commanded Taylor.

“Yes sir,” came a voice. The lead plane's propeller began to speed up, dragging the fuselage behind it. The plane and its followers quickly rolled out onto the airstrip and accelerated, hastily heading down the runway. Engineers stood on the side of the strip, waving at the departing aircraft. The planes parted from the concrete and pulled into formation above the rolling ocean.

“Flight 19, you are clear, see you when you get back.”

“Thanks ground. Gerber, set course for zero-niner-one and proceed 73 nautical miles, you have the lead. Take us through the routine nice and clean so we can get back home,” said Taylor, loosing his grip on his control somewhat. So far so good.

“Roger that, Lieutenant. I have the lead. Accelerating to 300 kph and holding. ETA till target, eleven minutes.” Gerber’s voice could be heard over the radio. There was a small break before it started back up again. “With the wind at our back, we could even save some gas, speaking of, Lieutenant, how come they gave us so much gas? I mean, two wing tanks in addition to our main tank? Seems a bit excessive, don’t ya think?”

“Dunno Gerber, not my problem. They want to give us gas in case we get lost probably. So don’t get lost. I don’t want someone barking down my neck over wasted gas.” Taylor replied lazily.

“Yes sir. Two minutes to target,” Gerber sounded again. The two minutes clocked away in silence. “Sir, we are above the target.”

“Roger, Flight 19, drop to bombing altitude, safeties off... bombs away,” Taylor said, still rather nonchalantly. As the planes dropped their bombs, they pulled away. “Bombing run complete, nice work everyone. Gerber, turn to heading three-four-six and go seventy-six nautical miles again. Mark.”

“Yes Sir, changing heading,” Gerber replied. “Wind’s getting pretty bad Lieutenant. At least the sky is clear.”

Taylor rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Yes, good thing indeed...” The second leg of the flight went on rather silently to Taylor’s relief. That was until a concerned voice came on the radio.

“Uh, Lieutenant, I think we’re lost.” Gerber’s voice sounded shaken.

Taylor’s grip tightened around the control stick when he heard this. “Son, what do you mean... lost?”

“Like I think my heading was off. My compass is out of control, its spinning like crazy.”

“Erm... okay, uh, Powers, give me your reading,” Taylor said calmly.

“I’ve got the same thing here Lieutenant. Spinning like a drunk man on St. Patties day,” came a voice.

“Not the time for that, pilot. Can anyone get me a reading?” Taylor asked, slightly getting unnerved. No one replied, and his compass had begun spinning as well. He shook his head in frustration. He angled his plane slightly and looked down below. Beneath him was a series of Islands. “I think we are above the Keys...”

“How the hell did we end up here?” Someone asked.

“Dunno, but if we fly north we can find home, any objections? No? Good, put the sun towards your starboard side and fly straight. We should hit the mainland soon, we'll fly up over the Gulf of Mexico and go home,” Taylor said, confidence flowing back into him. He had a plan again.

After about an hour of flying, though, that confidence began to drift away again. “We should have hit the mainland by now. All planes close up tight... we'll have to ditch unless landfall... when the first plane drops below 10 gallons, we all go down together, and where the hell are these clouds coming from?” He glanced out towards the sun, it was beginning to set. “Pilots we—”

“Sir, what the hell is that?!” Shouted the gunner in his plane. He looked forward and a bright light was approaching the planes.

Staff Sergeant Howell O. Thompson blinked.

What just happened? And where did all of these clouds come from?

“Hey Howell, you okay there?” Thompson realized someone was asking him a question. “Howy, wake up man!”

“George? What... What happened?”

“I don’t know How. But whatever it was, it knocked out our radio," commented Sergeant George R. Paonessa

“Shit. Why is the plane spinning?”

“Because you hit your head when we hit some turbulence. We really need to toughen you up.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Captain E. J. Powers gasping in disbelief. “What the...”

“What’s up Cap’?” George said as he looked over to the cockpit for a better view. A second gasp met Howell’s ears. Curiosity perked, Howell turned from his gunner's position to see what looked to be an explosion in front of their aircraft. “Jesus Almighty, is that flak? The hell!? We are over friendly ground and the war is over!” There was a lingering light that could be seen faintly through the clouds. As a second explosion appeared much closer to them, Captain Powers started to take evasive maneuvers to avoid being hit.

Howell could barely see fifteen feet in front of him. He had no idea how the Captain was going to avoid crashing into the other Avengers. “Wait, isn’t that a mou —” Howell was cut off as the right most wing was torn violently from the aircraft as they passed by a mountain.

“We’re hit!” The Captain yelled, “Mayday! Mayday! This is FT-36, we’re going down!

Howell couldn’t entirely comprehend the situation as his vision slowly receded. Wasn’t there a wing there a minute ago? There was a noise that Howell thought vaguely resembled speech. Howell's vision continued to black out as all of the blood from his body was forced into places it shouldn’t have been from extreme G-forces.

Why is the plane spinning?

Twilight sat on her patio, staring through her telescope. The clouds were blocking her vision, however, and she became flustered. "Gah! Why did the Pegasi forget to clear the skies tonight!? I wanted to look at the stars!" She smacked the telescope with her hoof and it spun on its pedestal. She let out a sigh and looked back up into the sky. Clouds were thick as ever, blocking her beautiful night. It was then she saw a flashing light in the sky. She blinked and looked again. She still saw it. Flashing red and green lights soared far off in the distance. Twilight angled her telescope towards the lights and peered through. She couldn't see much through the clouds, but she counted a total of five green lights and five red lights that would flash in unison. Twilight sat in deep thought, contemplating what she saw. "Spike, come here and have a look at this would you?"

"What is it Twilight?" Spike asked.

"I don't know, there's flashing lights in the sky and I don't know what they are!" Twilight grunted frustratingly.

"Twi, if you don't know what they are, how would I?" Spike replied lazily. "Besides I'm in bed!"

"Just come look would you!" Twilight raised her voice slightly.

"Fine, fine," Spike grumbled. He slowly drew himself from his bed and laundered over slowly before peering down into the telescope. "Twi, I don't see anything."

"What do you mean? The lights were there a moment ago!" Twilight was very confused. She looked back out into the night sky and to her surprise, the lights had moved somewhat. She angled the telescope accordingly and told Spike to look again.

"Oh, I see now... Yeah, I don't know what they are. Can I go back to bed now?" He asked, stifling a yawn. He was looking out at the sky with sleepy eyes when the small lights erupted into a giant fireball. "Whoa!" He quickly stared through the telescope again before another explosion blossomed through the clouds. "Look Twilight!"