Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

"An investigation mission into an unusual thunderstorm?"

This is the first "big mission" I've received since officially joining the Victory Team. It comes from information compiled by the air force, which says that they encountered a dangerous thunderstorm when they last took the director to the European branch.

Daigo was excited but also a little nervous when he received the mission assignment.

“Don’t worry, it’s a simple site survey, we wouldn’t normally need to get involved,” Shinjo said, pacing back and forth in the room. As he passed Daigo, he reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “But because it involves the director, we have to be careful.”

“But the unusual thunderstorm has stopped, and there’s nothing the satellite can see…” Unlike the other team members who were focused on the mission requirements, Horii kept flipping through the part of the on-site report: “Thunderstorm in the stratosphere, at an altitude of 23000 meters…”

The top left corner of the thin page was marked with a security classification, and his attention lingered on the air force's report.

"Hmm?" The hesitant voice attracted everyone's attention. Horii had his head down, his chubby face almost buried in the paper.

"What's wrong? Did you find anything?" Shinjo took two steps closer to him, looking down at the report with a furtive glance.

“Ah, the air force said they saw an unusual dark shadow,” Horii raised his head, his round eyes wide open, looking like he was talking about a ghost movie in the middle of the night. “It might be a bird, it might be an alien life form, it might be… I thought of Dr. Mizuno’s hypothesis.”

……

The meeting of the Victory Team was quick, without any speeches from leaders or mobilization meetings. After arranging the candidates for the investigation, Megumi Kijima told the people who stayed behind to keep up their good condition.

Daigo naturally stayed behind.

Horii and Shinjo were assigned tasks and left each with a report in their hands; the bright "Confidential" label in the upper left corner was dazzling.

Daigo walked silently toward the GUTS dormitory—he told himself there was nothing to be disappointed about.

Having only recently joined, he wasn't even familiar with the functions and controls of the Sherlock car, let alone the various combat training, firearms training, and the most troublesome flight lessons.

Although the above courses are not needed to investigate anomalies, and although it's just a simple task—in Horii's words, "don't have too high expectations"—...

He looked down and saw the spotless marble floor and himself in his red and white uniform.

Even at night, TPC's Far East headquarters is brightly lit, with marble gleaming in the sunlight. It seems that everyone has endless work to do, and the hurried footsteps indicate the expectations and responsibilities they bear.

"When will I be able to walk here proudly and hurriedly?" This was a question that every newcomer would have to some extent.

"We must try our best to catch up with them!" The somewhat hesitant footsteps paused, and then the direction suddenly changed.

He decided to go back and retrieve the manuals and textbooks that had been distributed to him.

I'll spend tonight at the library.

The Victory team's locker room is certainly in excellent condition, but it is, after all, just a "locker room".

“I need to catch up with my teammates within six months, so just reading the textbook isn’t enough,” Daigo said, walking back the way he came. It was the same road, but the more he walked, the clearer things became. “The real difference lies in the basic courses. I need to be familiar with the standards in the operating manual, and more importantly, I need to understand why those standards were set. Then, if I encounter anything I don’t understand, I can ask the commanders…”

Daigo realized that he seemed to have returned to his student days. The "catch-up plan" that was surging in his mind was exactly what he had known back in school. Only the person who issued the task had changed from the teacher to himself.

When he returned to the team, Lina and Ye Rui were still there. He greeted them, took his textbooks and went out, receiving two shouts of "Good luck!" in return.

“What a hardworking newbie,” Daigo said as he turned the corner, not noticing the commander and captain coming from the other side. He then commanded Munakata Makoto, “You scared him by saying he would be sent back, and now you’ve really scared him to death.”

“Isn’t it good?” Megumi naturally saw the books he was holding: “The GUTS team isn’t equipped with weapons, but that day will come sooner or later. If we don’t work hard now, we’ll have to make up for it with something more precious later.”

"It sounds like what Commander Yoshioka said."

"There are no factions in this matter."

The two spoke in hushed tones. Daigo walked around the circular corridor in the center of the base and hurried toward the library—his subtle emotions seemed to be released by the "tap-tap" of his footsteps. He unconsciously began to display the so-called "pride" that he had been watching earlier.

With a clear goal, transformation often happens in an instant.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" He found an empty seat. There were quite a few people in the library, but everyone remained silent and spoke very quietly. He sighed inwardly, "No wonder they are from the TPC Far East headquarters."

"No," the person on the other end replied.

Daigo sat down with peace of mind and opened the notebook that Rena had given him—it was a notebook she had kept when she was a newcomer, used for his reference.

Lina's handwriting was much neater than Shinjo's. Horii and Nozue always added some of their own whimsical ideas, which Daigo found too abrupt, like gibberish.

Therefore, what Lina gave him was still the most suitable.

He glanced at the material the person opposite him was looking at; it seemed to be a thesis, with foreign characters resembling strings of tadpoles, making one's scalp tingle.

It was specially compiled into a booklet, with a perspective view of an airplane wing spanning two A4 sheets, and an identical one spread out next to it.

The man typed on his laptop with both hands, only glancing at the drawings occasionally.

"I'm sorry." Daigo realized that his gaze had lingered on the blueprints for too long.

“What you can see here isn’t anything important. The Victory Team has a high level of authority,” the person opposite said without looking up, but it seemed as if he could see the textbook Daigo was carrying: “The third booklet you brought, the one with the blue cover, is best not to be opened here.”

Daigo turned the cover over; it contained information about the Flying Swallow No. 1.

The new recruit training hasn't even started with flight lessons yet, but he decided to do some pre-training, though he didn't take into account the sensitivity of the important data on the Flying Swallow No. 1 aircraft.

"Masaki Daigo." The other person stopped what they were doing and looked away from the computer screen.

"Do you know me?" Daigo looked at the other person suspiciously. The face was unfamiliar, and he couldn't tell the exact age, but he was definitely not a young man in his twenties. Judging from the uniform, he was not a researcher, but more like a member of the executive department.

“The newcomers on the Victory team are getting more attention than you think,” the man said. “You’re famous now.”

Daigo instantly felt the pressure as if a heavy weight, the size of a sand basin, had slammed down on his head.

"I'm also curious about who rejected my team members. Although Sosuke is still immature, that's only relative. Between the Air Force and the Transportation Department, everyone would feel that the Air Force is a better fit for the GUTS team's requirements."

Daigo didn't know who Sosuke was, but he understood the meaning behind his words—the other person seemed to have some reservations about his selection for the GUTS team? He sat up straight, pondering whether to reply, "I'm number one in overall performance."

"Looking at it now... most people might not have gotten over the excitement of being selected yet, but at least Sosuke would be," the other person said, changing the subject and smiling at him, "When is your flight course?"

"What a strange person," Daigo thought, but still maintained his politeness: "In half a month."

The other person nodded and didn't reply.

When Daigo peeked out from the sea of ​​books, the clock had already struck midnight. He suddenly realized that he should go to rest, as he had combat training the next day, and if he didn't sleep well, he would probably get beaten half to death.

The strange man across from him was still typing on his computer. He whispered "Goodbye," packed his things, and left.

The strange man stretched, clicked the save button, and the cursor hovered after the period at the end of the paragraph.

The document label at the bottom reads: "Air Force Manual - Summary of Existing Aircraft Type Classification for Responding to Sudden Thunderstorms".

Air force dormitory.

Fujisawa Sousuke turned over in his sleep, muttering to himself, "...Don't talk about it if you can't remember."

Chapter Five Friends

Just as Horii had predicted before his departure, his investigation in Siberia with Shinjo ended in failure.

Dr. Mizuno's hypothesis was not verified. Horii's answer was that "research is always full of twists and turns." Daigo only half understood the terms "ionosphere" and "Crete" that he was talking about, and he continued to look down at the manual.

"Hmm? This isn't my notebook." Lina noticed the oddity of the "Flying Swallow No. 1 Data Booklet" in his hand. The cover maintained its usual blue background, but the logo was in an earlier style, and the edges were a bit rough, clearly indicating that it was an old item.

She knew that Daigo, who was under a lot of pressure, would always spend time in the library after training, but would the library have any information about the Flying Swallow No. 1?

Noticing her gaze, Daigo held the booklet up so she could see it clearly: "I ran into the captain of the air force a few times at the library. He gave me his experience as a test pilot, as well as this booklet. Although it's from a test aircraft... it helps me understand the Flying Swallow better."

Lina leaned forward abruptly, startling Daigo with her face suddenly close to his. He tilted his head back to press himself against the chair back: "I've kept your notes safe too!"

"A test pilot's insights! Something even I'm envious of!" Nanase Rena, the ace pilot of the GUTS team, said with narrowed eyes, "I had no way to get it, but I didn't expect you to get your hands on it."

Daigo's expression went blank for a moment.

Lina suddenly smiled, her tone softening: "Can I borrow it?"

Ace pilot wants this? Daigo practically had "You're kidding me" written all over his face.

“It seems you two get along quite well,” Lina’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve been curious about the Carlo airship for a long time. If it’s convenient, do you have any records about it?”

"You'd have to ask Carlo Base if they'll give it to you..." Daigo underestimated the pilots' enthusiasm for the new mobile suits, and simply said, "Or you can just ask them directly. When you were a newbie, there weren't any pilots in the team to teach you, were there?"

"Ah, he even told you about the earliest flight lessons the Victory Team had in the Air Force!" Lina sat back down. "I joined quite early, back when he was still testing airships at the Carlo base. The Flying Swallow's operating manual is very good, but for me, the flight experience was definitely more helpful."

Daigo didn't quite understand her level of expertise; for him, just reading that thick manual would take forever. Aiba Yu's notes, while impressive, were like Horii and Nozue's research notes—completely rambling and wildly unrelated; it was truly baffling how their brains worked.

Before he could speak on the issue of "realm", Lina sighed heavily again: "It's true that being a test pilot is dangerous, but it's also a pity to go and fly commercial flights."

Flight? Daigo pondered for a moment before realizing what she meant.

"That's TPC1, it's related to Director Sawai!"

“But it’s just a regular airliner, no different from a regular passenger plane… except that the materials are more robust and less prone to problems,” Lina said with a regretful look. “When he rejected the Victory Team, he said he loved the job of a test pilot more. Honestly, if he liked it so much, why did he step down so quickly? He couldn’t have been fooling us.”

“The police department is not a second-tier department.” Daigo felt fortunate that Chief Yoshioka was not present, otherwise this assessment of “second-tier” would have made the famously serious chief turn sour to his face.

"Alright, everyone has their own ambitions," Lina said, smiling at him again. "I heard from the commander that your combat training can probably be slowed down. How about we schedule an anti-vertigo class tomorrow? It's a lot of fun."

"Fun?" Daigo, unaware of what he was about to face, nodded blankly.

……

At the same time, Daigo's serious-looking Chief Yoshioka had just stepped out of the director's office.

"The Victory Team's investigation yielded no results." Tetsuji Yoshioka, the police chief, walked ahead, while his subordinates, who dared not utter a sound, followed at a short distance.

"Aiba!" he raised his voice, waking someone who seemed a little distracted. "You reported seeing some kind of creature?"

Aiba Yu snapped out of his daze: "Yes, Herbert also saw the shadowy figure...it didn't look like a bird."

“What kind of bird can fly 23000 meters high?” Tetsuji Yoshioka thought he was stating the obvious: “If you’re not seeing things, it’s probably an alien visitor or an unknown creature on Earth—like that hypothesis about the existence of creatures called ‘Crete’ on Earth.”

Crete's hypothesis, proposed by Dr. Mizuno, suggests that an unknown life form may exist in Earth's ionosphere, hiding itself within clouds and thus remaining undiscovered for many years.

Aiba Yu responded and remained silent. In fact, he had seen more than one dark shadow, but he couldn't explain how he could see the creatures clearly while moving at high speed, so he only reported a vague description.

TPC1 apparently stumbled into the other's lair by accident. Aiba Yu used his telekinesis to deflect the strange creature and lightning that tried to crash into him. In the meantime, he tried to communicate with the other in a form of mental dialogue.