Sky Bus

Sky Bus 365 (スカイバス365) is a passenger plane that was scheduled to fly from School District 22 in Academy City to Edinburgh, Scotland, carrying 500+ passengers and crew. However, it made a surprise (to the passengers) stop in Paris, France in order to transport goods to the United Kingdom after the Eurotunnel bombing closed off the primary method of delivery of goods to the island nation from mainland Europe.

The plane would later be involved in an attempted terrorist hijacking and later bombing, but was thwarted by Kamijou Touma, the plane's crew, and Necessarius.

Principles
The Sky Bus 365 is a large and spacious passenger plane, with a passenger area which can seat over 500 people split into two floors of passenger seats, doubling its capacity, and a large amount of space for each seat, even for the cheapest seats. The seats were divided into three pairs of two by the aisles, and the seating area divided by walls, that were 7 meters thick, between economy, business, and first classes, with a free drink corner on a portion of the wall, among other small facilities, which can serve hot coffee, dividing economy from business. probably as a terrorism countermeasure. There was a fire door, an emergency hatch, located in one of the "wall" area, which connected the passenger seating to the cargo hold area, allowing for the crew to put out a fire if one occurs in the cargo hold. Even in economy class, the plane is fairly luxurious, with the chairs have screens with which a passenger can use to view channels, some of which a pre pay-per-view. And with a push of a button, the oxygen mask can be deployed by the passenger itself.

The main wings of the Sky Bus 365's model has the fuel tanks inside of it, while the engines hang down below them. The Sky Bus 365 model is designed so the engines won’t contact the ground during a belly landing. Because of the fact that intense vibrations will still be transferred to within the engines during a belly landing creating an explosive reaction with the highly flammable jet fuel that has been exposed to oxygen, it has an emergency landing stabilizer to deal with the vibrations. It automatically detects the shock of a belly landing using sensors and completely shuts down the engines. It also seals off the fuel pipes so a fire in the engines cannot reach the fuel tanks. With this the plane on a belly landing then heads down the runway purely on inertia and decelerates.

Structural defect
However, the plane's model has a structural defect in the plane. The structural defect in the Sky Bus 365's model is that it if the emergency landing stabilizer is interfered with and stops working then it can cause the plane to explode when the plane is in a belly landing.

Eurotunnel bombing
With the bombing of the Eurotunnel, which at that point was referred to by the media as "an accidental explosion", England was suffering from the shortage of goods and growing economic trouble,, forcing the country to increase the use of sea and air transportation to move goods to England until the tunnel is finished.

Due to this, Sky Bus 365 would later participate in aiding in the transport of goods from France to Britain, and apparently was planned in advance.

Goal of the terrorists
Believing that the Eurotunnel was purposefully done by England and that only France was damaged by it, a French anti-England group planned to do the same type of damage to England in retaliation. The group's aim was to completely take out England's air routes. To do this, the terrorists wanted the destruction of the master recorders (マスターレコード) for the 4 major airlines in the United Kingdom. These master recorders are computers that provide centralized management for passengers' flight tickets and luggage tags. It is vital to the operations in airlines as dealing with that much information is too much to deal with by hand. If tampered with while connected to the network, its data will be completely destroyed and a log file of the destruction will be posted as a comment on the airline’s blog. If the format of the encrypted log were analyzed, a dummy log could be made and the destruction of the master recorders could be faked. Essentially crippling the United Kingdom's airline industry.

In the e-mail they would later send to the airlines, they demand for the United Kingdom to close off the air routes, and then destroy the master recorders, as a way to deal an equal amount of damage to the country as they have perceived what the explosion in the Eurotunnel had done to France.

Planning of the attack
Eiker Lugoni and Musset is part of this anti-England group. Wanting to hijack a plane without any weapons, the terrorists strike a deal with several organizations for information and shelter in exchange for teaching them what they knew. With this, the group is able to make use of the information given to them about Sky Bus 365 stopping at France to be used to transport goods, and chooses it as its target. Knowing of the structural defect in the Sky Bus 365's model, the terrorists take flights on planes with the same model as "practice runs". These planes are Flight 5991 from Paris to Moscow, Flight 4135 from Neath to New York, and Flight 7558 from Marseille to Beijing, cutting their engines for 15 seconds during mid-flight during their tests. Armed with this knowledge, one of them then sends an e-mail threatening the airliner and specifically mentions the structural defect of Sky Bus 365's model likely to add weight to their threat.

Eiker meanwhile, has Musset apparently board the plane apparently at Academy City in the business class section of the plane. He would also book a seat next to a square portion of the plane that can be removed easily under a false name. This is where they can take advantage of the structural defect in the Sky Bus 365, and use it to make it crash. Eiker gives Musset a notepad containing vital information to the plan, like the seat plan for the flight, and instructs him not to look on it if he didn't have to, and only recheck it if it is important. Musset also had with him a cell phone with a program that if he is able to connect to Sky Bus 365's system, then he will be able to infect it and cripple its emergency landing stabilizer. From then on, he would likely force the plane to do an emergency "belly landing". He also arms himself a knife made from animal bone, allowing it to go by metal detectors undetected. Later, after the plane lands in Paris to transport the goods, Eiker will smuggle himself into the plane's cargo hold. He would bring with him a collection of explosives, intending to bring down the plane if their primary failed. Basically, the plan was to manipulate the emergency landing stabilizers and threaten to crash the plane if the United Kingdom doesn't destroy its master recorders for the airlines, if that fails then they will be forced to make use of the second plan, where the plane would be threatened in being blown up instead.

October 17 flight
On October 17 of the current year of the timeline, the airliner was scheduled to fly from School District 22 in Academy City to Scotland, Edinburgh. Touma and Index, who were heading to London on the airliner, would be then forced to take another flight from Edinburgh just to get to London. Because Eiker Lugoni booked the other seat away from his accomplice with a fake name and since the "passenger" didn't show up by the time of the boarding deadline, Touma is able to buy the ticket for the seat at the last minute. This allows Touma to occupy the aforementioned seat.

The e-mail threat would later be sent to the air traffic control in Academy City, and from there sends word to the airliner. The sender of the e-mail would later be apprehended by French authorities for interrogation, though he or she wasn't willing to divulge information that would be usable to nip the terrorist plot in time.

The plane was manned by a captain, with two co-pilots, Wash and Richmond. There is also a unnamed female flight attendant that Touma describes as having a nice body. The pilot has a weapon called an Archery.

Prelude
Despite being a non-stop flight to Edinburgh, Sky Bus 365 lands at a French airport in Paris. This is to aid the transport of goods from France to Britain after the Eurotunnel bombing, preventing the normal transport of goods and materials and putting Britain in economic turmoil. Here, Eiker Lugoni, disguising himself as a worker for the airport in Paris, sneaks into the cargo hold, in the center section where the goods are kept.

After Sky Bus 365 safely takes off, Musset makes his move. He has been watching Touma as he is the seat that was supposed to be empty. After rechecking his notes, he concludes that Touma was able to purchase a ticket for the seat after the "passenger" that Eiker booked was cancelled after the boarding deadline. To deflect suspicion from him, he goes to the second story of the aircraft and doubles back down to his story. He walks pass by Touma, secretly observing him, wondering what he should do.

The pilot, knowing full well of the danger that the airliner faced, had the flight attendant print out the report from air traffic control, containing not only flight numbers but the e-mail threat by the terrorists. She would later bump into Touma, who was wondering about their in-flight meal. Though the attendant questioned Touma if he saw what was written on them, when she learns that Touma didn't understand after he says he didn't look up her skirt after she fell, she later leaves and promises to bring their meal. The pilot later communicates with a security officer from Academy City regarding the terror threat, with the latter concluding that the terrorists will move in the time between the airliners flight from Paris to Edinburgh, which was 40 minutes to an hour, and that they are prepared to commit suicide as well. The pilot suggests turning back to Paris, but the security officer states that he will be noticed and that he can't make a gradual enough turn as there isn't enough spare fuel. The pilot discovers that he and the crew is alone in finding the terrorist before they make their move and all the while have to keep it a secret from the passengers lest chaos and panic erupts.

First actions
Just after the pilot's conversation with Academy City's international airport security officer, he is alerted that by one of his crew members that the terrorist have made their move, injuring a female crewmember from behind. Musset later retreats to the area where the emergency hatch was after stealing the flight attendant's card key.

Before the flight attendant with the nice body can wipe the blood from the food storage room near the free drink dispenser, Touma discovers it. The flight attendant, after seeing this, subdues Touma, and reports to the captain of what happened and for further instructions. As she waited for the pilot, the flight attendant explains to Touma that it is a terrorist attack and she had to subdue him after seeing the blood of a crewmember that was attacked by the terrorist, in order to prevent panic as well as prevent provoking the prevent the terrorist from attacking.

The pilot later arrives and says that Touma should be separated from the other passengers. The flight attendant protests, saying that though they have to ensure the safety of the passengers, there is really no need for them to confine Touma. Despite this, the pilot doesn't believe will not panic and blurt out the information that he knows if he is returned to his seat, and reprimands the flight attendant for not thinking it through. The pilot says that he should be confined until the situation is resolved, and as thanks for his cooperation will be refunded. Touma protests as well, asking if they can handle it on their own and offers his services. The pilot says that they are also confining him to prevent him from interfering, as he cannot let an amateur like Touma handle the situation where 500 and more passengers' lives are in stake. With that the captain says that it is his responsibility to take care of the passengers and Touma has no reason to take on the responsibility. He later gestures to the flight attendant to put Touma in the in-flight meal heating area. There, Touma recalls what the flight attendant had said regarding the Air Bus 365's defect when the master recorder is infected, though is unable to do anything but wait for the door to be opened.

Second actions
Despite having the card, Musset could not get the emergency hatch to open in order to get Eiker out of the cargo hold for their backup plan. He later rechecks Touma's seat and finds out he isn't there, and Index was also wandering about in the aisle. Seeing his chance, he leaves to once again go to the stairs to get to the other floor and come back down and approach the seat from the other direction.

Despite his precautions, Index still notices and approaches him, telling the Musset that he is sitting on Touma's seat. Irritated by the setbacks, Musset pulls out his animal bone knife and threatens Index discreetly from the eyes of the passengers and crew as he continues on with his operation. He opens up the square portion of the wall but finds that the port where the connector of his phone was supposed to go to was broke. Index points out that the portion was "opened up" (as in accidentally hit) by Touma a while ago. With his plans in disarray, Musset was in a loss. And with Index being a witness to his operations, decided to get rid of her first before deciding what step he should take next.

Kamijou Touma becomes involved
Touma then hears noises outside the door. Here, he also hears the familiar sound of Index's whistle as the terrorist leads Index to a storage closet as he begins strangling her. Paranoia grips Touma and believing that worst, Touma takes an aluminum cart and smashes it through the door, bringing it down. He then finds a closed door and open, and there he finds Musset straddling Index and trying to choke her with a hose. Furious, Touma throws Musset away from Index, making him hit the wall before falling to the floor. Touma tries to kick him but he manages to dodge, making Touma kick the thin wall and breaking it. Musset attacks Touma's leg with his animal bone knife, making a small cut. Touma however grabs the broken handle of the aluminum cart. He flinches in fear, but before Touma can strike, the pilot and the flight attendant Touma appear. Musset then flees before they can arrive. With Index a priority first, Touma goes to her where she mentions to him about flight stabilizers. When the crew arrives, Touma asks them about the flight stabilizers, to which the pilot explains. He essentially states that the emergency landing stabilizers prevent the jet fuel of the plane from exploding when in a belly landing. Now having an inkling of the terrorists' plans, the pilot once again plans to chuck Touma in a room along with Index, separate from the rest of the passengers in order to prevent them from panicking. As the pilot goes on about his "duty" to protect the lives of the passengers, Touma is infuriated by it. Touma attacks the pilot with the metal handle, knocking him backwards. He points out that him going along with his plans is what allowed Index to get attacked and that he already failed in his promise of protecting the 500 passengers of the plane by letting get hurt. Intending to beat up the terrorist, Touma tosses away the metal handle and leaves Index in the hands to the flight attendant as he goes to the staircase where the terrorist disappeared to, promising to beat him up until he passes out. After Touma leaves, the pilot then contacts one of the co-pilots, Wash, to leave the piloting to Richmond, and bring the Archery to him. This shocks the flight attendant, as the pilot justifies his request that Touma has become as dangerous as a terrorist. It is later delivered to him.

Meanwhile, the Musset has blended in with the passengers, making Touma unable to find him. Wanting to unnerve the man, Touma returns to the wall separating the business and economy classes, and turns on a switch that makes an alarm sound throughout the plane and forces the oxygen masks out of the ceilings for the passengers. This predictably unnerves the Musset as he believes that the plane might crash in an accident before he could enact his plan and making his and his group's efforts for nothing. At the same as this, the pilot is also infuriated by the alarm, and tells the co-pilots to stop it and tell the passengers that it was a false alarm. As he prepares to hunt down Touma and the terrorist, before he could do so, the co-pilots tell him that the fuel gauge is going down and that there might be a hole in the tank, requesting for him to return to the cockpit, as well as telling him that they may need to do an emergency landing.

Necessarius becomes involved
In reality it was the work of Necessarius, who, knowing that Index is in the cockpit and her survival being paramount, the terrorists in Sky Bus 365 was a very important matter. Head of Necessarius and Archbishop Laura Stuart had earlier called for all the heads of the three powers of the United Kingdom to meet in in St. George's Cathedral, herself, Queen Elizard, and the Knight Leader, however, only the Knight Leader was present for the meeting as the Queen was too busy.

Using technology and magic, she had an illusion cast on the monitoring devices in Sky Bus 365's cockpit, wanting it to force the hijacker to land in a country highway out of the way of the city like London. Knight Leader throws doubt on the plan since an emergency landing would most likely be difficult in such a time, but Laura says that it is preferable to the plane exploding in the City. Laura then asks a nun passing by where the plane will most likely land, to which she says that it is in the area between Kendal and Carlisle in Cumbria on the highway leading to Scotland. Hearing this, Laura commands Knight Leader to handle the operation there, much to his annoyance. Laura Stuart says that they should be the one to handle it as the terrorist are not magicians and do not have bombs or guns with them, and that he should be thankful as she is handing out an easy job for them. The Knight Leader states that she can rush it if she wants but asks what she is to do if the plane comes apart in midair. Laura coldly replies that they will recover Index Librorum Prohibitorum from onboard with the spell they used on Lidvia, even if the plane were to explode in midair, they can still catch someone from the ground as long as its only one person. Hearing this, the Knight Leader can only wish an early death on her.

Taking out the first terrorist
The pilot decides to do an emergency landing after being fooled by Necessarius' manipulations. Noticing that the plane is going for an emergency landing even before he can tamper with the emergency landing stabilizers, Musset goes to the wall area and uses the microphone there to contact the cockpit. There, he bluffs to the captain that he has control over the Sky Bus 365's structural defect and he can bring down the plane any time he wants. He then demands that if he doesn't want the 500 people on-board to die then the pilot should take them back to the proper altitude. Despite this the pilot says that he cannot do it, confessing to the terrorist what he thinks is happening to the plane. The terrorist threatens again, saying that he will kill passengers one by one after 3 minutes if they still don't follow his demands. Despite this, the pilot is adamant in continuing for an emergency landing, saying that even if the terrorist kill half of the passengers, there is still plenty left if he is able to land.

In spite of the pilot's intentions, someone from Scotland has sealed their long distance illusion magic. This then allowed the pilot to return to their proper altitude. Necessarius notices this as well, with Laura noticing the plane's rising altitude once again implying that the illusion applied on the plane's fuel gauge has been changed. Suddenly, a nun tells her that there has been a large scale interference coming from the direction of Scotland, and thus their illusion was sealed by a third party, making the fuel gauge back to normal. That night, Laura makes an expression of displeasure, while the Knight Leader has an expression of anger on him, asking if French magicians have gotten into the country, or if a magic cabal has betrayed them. Regardless, he tells Laura that it is her mistake, telling her that he thought that she was using the full power of the Anglican Church in order to avoid trouble before it happened. Hearing this, Laura snaps her fingers, saying that she knows and that there is more to the current situation than some delinquents who like flashy things. Stiyl Magnus appears next to her, stating that she wants him to make preparations regarding the Sky Bus 365 just in case, and asks what he needs. He says that he will need a means of transport, and asks the Knights of England to contact the Air Force since they have control over the military forces. Stiyl Magnus later hitches a ride on a large transport plane, from the Royal Air Force.

Musset notices as well, but before he can take advantage of the situation, Kamijou Touma has finally found him. He tries to draw his animal bone knife, but Touma was already too close, and he was able to prevent him from using it lest he'd be injured himself. He tries to shake off Touma but before he can do so he head-butts him. He then knees the man in the gut, making him collapse on the ground. There, he reaches into his suit pocket to get his knife but discovers that it has broken in two. With Touma having the complete advantage, he punches Musset several times. Touma later ties him up and puts him in one of the small rooms in the "wall".

Taking out the second terrorist
With the crisis seemingly over, the flight attendant informs Touma of what had happened with the fuel gauge as the pilot still has a bit of a grudge with Touma. Moreover, Index has regained consciousness and is unperturbed after being strangled. Touma begins to wonder why the terrorist started his actions at the last hour of the flight from Academy City to Edinburgh, as he could've done it any time before the plane reached Great Britain's airspace. Pondering this, Touma recalls that they've landed in Paris earlier to transport goods, and concludes that another terrorist has snuck into the cargo hold likely with weapons, ready to enact another plan if the terrorist's plan failed. Touma then asks if the hatch is the only way to get into the cargo hold, to which the flight attendant confirms, saying only a co-pilot or higher card key can access it. Hearing this, Touma believes that it would be probably difficult to have the pilot assist them. The flight attendant says that though the pilot may not help, she can get a card key from one of the two co-pilots, though says she will not be able to get Archery in order to take the terrorist down. She also says that the cargo taken from France is in the center block.

Seeing that opening the cargo hold would be dangerous, Touma then asks if they could use the ventilation ducts, though not for crawling like in the movies as they are only 30 centimeters, as the flight attendant points out, but to use in pouring of hot liquids. Touma then instructs the flight attendant to make use of the hot coffee or any kind of hot liquid from the free drink corner.

Back with Eiker, he is waiting in the cargo hold. As time passed by, it became obvious to Eiker that Musset has failed with the primary plan. Eiker considers making his move but decides to wait a little longer. He then hears some noises coming from the ventilation ducts in the ceiling. Thinking, despite the fact that he knew no one should be able to fit, that someone might be coming through it, he fires at where the metal was being bent and is then covered by hot tea. He is then asked by Kamijou Touma, who had entered the cargo hold unnoticed by matching the hatch opening and closing with the gunshots, if he knew about thermal expansion. Eiker spins around with his gun, but before he can fire, Touma throws a bucket of boiling coffee he carried with him at Eiker. Touma then kicks Eiker's gun away into the puddle while Eiker writhes in pain. Eiker however then grabs Touma but the collar, lifts him up and slams him to the floor. He then draws a large dagger and swings it down Touma's face. Touma swings his face to the side to avoid the strike, at which point the dagger breaks in two. Eiker tries to bring the dagger down for another attack, but Touma grabs the broken portion and thrusts it into Eiker's thigh. As Touma rolls away, Eiker grabs his handgun.

Furious, Eiker says that he will bring down the plane, blaming England for the damage that was caused on France by the Eurotunnel explosion, and wanting to strike the same amount of damage to it. Touma argues back that there is no proof or reason for England to destroy it's only land route to France, and also argues is that not only is England suffering, France is also aiding the country as well. Eiker then states that it isn't something he'd need worry about as he is going die there. Eiker tries to pull the trigger, but finds out that the gun isn’t firing, due to some of its parts expanding while being submerged in hot coffee. Pointing this out, Touma then punches him several times and knocking him down.

Just as Touma is about to relax, Eiker has already stood up and has grabbed a grenade with him. Touma tries to get grab Eiker's arms, but he is faster and has already reached for the pin. Just before he can pull it, the two hears Stiyl Magnus, telling Touma that he is still an amateur and him hesitating in taking a life endangers others. Stiyl apparently had the transport plane he was on come close to 10 meters next to Sky Bus 365, which was noticed by several people including Index, the captain, and the flight attendant. There, Stiyl has the back of the transport plane open up, allowing him to send out his rune cards out. With that Stiyl uses his flame sword to pierce the hull of the plane in the cargo hold. As the air rushed out, Eiker's body got sucked towards the hole, plugging it. Stiyl tells Touma that the plane is landing in 10 minutes, wondering if Eiker can survive his ordeal. He tells Touma that since he bear's being Index's manager, he would like for him to show him his resolve. As Eiker screams in pain as his flesh is being sucked into the hole, he tries to pull the pin, but Touma knocks the grenade away. He then tells Eiker to hang in there.

Aftermath
Sky Bus 365 later lands safely in Edinburgh, Scotland as planned instead of making an emergency landing. In spite of his actions in stopping the terrorists, Kamijou Touma does not receive and recognition nor is rewarded. He and Index later passes from the immigration gate in the airport while the media is busy with the news of the plane. This is likely deliberate because the attack of the plane is deep entrenched in the politics of the magic side, much more because magic from the Anglican Church as well as an operative from it, Stiyl Magnus, aided in ending the ordeal. Princess Carissa however, after watching the news of the landing of the plane and discovering information that the transport plane that was taken from the Royal Air Force had used borrowed technology from Academy City, becomes concerned as she believes it is a sign of weakness by the United Kingdom and begins her next move.

Regardless, a media report has merely stated the plane had been in trouble at one point and says that the passengers and crew worked together to solved the problem, without saying any specific names. It is likely that both Musset and Eiker are later taken in by the authorities.