Unknown Storyteller
Biographical Information
Homeland	San Salvacion
Physical Description
Gender	Male
Hair color	Blond
Professional Character Data
Rank	Citizen
Notable facts	Narrates cutscenes through Ace Combat 4.
Chronological and Political Information
Era(s)	Usean Continental War
Affiliation	San Salvacion
[Source]

The anonymous "Storyteller Boy" is the narrator of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies.

BiographyEdit

An average boy who knew nothing of war, this unnamed child lived in San Salvacion on a cape, until the war took everything from him. At the end of summer vacation, he was riding his bike to school when he observed an air battle between two aircraft squadrons. He identified the "yellow" squadron leader as the plane which made the sharpest turns. That plane then shot down its target, which fell onto the boy's house, killing his family. The plane's tail number was marked "Yellow 13".

He then moved in with his uncle, a taxi driver, in downtown San Salvacion. Soon after, the Erusian military arrived and occupied the town. Numerous changes were introduced, including fuel rationing and a curfew. The fuel ration hurt his uncle hard, costing him his job, and he soon turned to heavy drinking. The boy sustained himself by playing his harmonica in the local bar, the Sky Kid, for small change. There, he developed a crush on the barkeep's daughter, who was a little older than him.

A few days into the job, the usual Erusian soldiers were chased out and a number of Erusian Air Force personnel took over the bar. The boy soon discovered that among them was the pilot who shot down the plane that landed on his house: Yellow 13. After spending a while in his company, the boy realized he couldn't find the words to confront him. They sat and accompanied each other, with Thirteen on a guitar - by some fluke, Thirteen had played the same song that the boy's father had played at the end of each day. They soon became friends, and the boy got to know the Air Force pilots and spent hours at their improvised airstrip.

The boy's uncle disappeared soon afterwards; whether he was arrested for making a drunken comment to the wrong person, or left of his own volition, is unknown. With nowhere else to go, the boy was allowed to stay at the bar. One night, the boy was sleeping in the bar after closing, when some noise woke him. He walked upstairs and stumbled into a meeting of the Resistance. He was roughly but quickly interrogated before the Barkeep's daughter took pity on the young child and let him go. Like with Thirteen, the boy and girl also became friends. He later noticed that she had harbored a crush on Thirteen, from the way she shot jealous glances at his wingman, Yellow 4, though Thirteen himself was oblivious to it; instead, he showed more interest in the ISAF pilot who had managed to keep up with his squadron over the Comona Islands.

When the Resistance bombed Yellow Squadron's runway, the boy knew of how they had lost reserve supplies from the bombing, and that logistics support had recently become infrequent following the Allied operations, from the Squadron's crew chief. He noticed that although Yellow 4 had suffered light shrapnel wounds, her plane was significantly damaged, most urgently needing an engine replacement. When word came of an attack on Stonehenge, he witnessed Yellow Squadron scramble to their fighters, Four included.

After Four was killed in action at Stonehenge, Thirteen began drifting away, but told the boy of how he and Four met years before. Thirteen had been holding a small handkerchief Four had left behind in her quarters, and the boy realized that the story was not so much directed at him as it was to not let the memory die with Four. As Thirteen later spoke honorably of the pilot who single-handedly destroyed Stonehenge, as opposed to the "despicable bastards" of the Resistance, the boy noticed the barkeep's daughter wincing out of guilt.

With the catalyst for the war destroyed, the tide was turning in favor of the ISAF, and Erusea was being pushed back. In response, San Salvacion was soon ordered to comply with nightly blackouts, to discourage bombing runs. One night, the barkeep's daughter tried to plant laser transmitters for detonating explosives, but was discovered and chased by Erusian troops. She was stopped and pulled aside by Yellow 13, who had sat in a parked car; he knew she was the one who planted the bomb on their runway. The boy caught up with them, and angrily confronted Thirteen. Pained by the boy's words and the revelation of the girl being a Resistance member, but noticing the incoming troops, he dismissed them, allowing them to get away.

The next day, Thirteen, despite complaining about the poor fuel quality affecting his plane's thrust, went out on sortie and never came back. After the ISAF forces had liberated the city, the boy tried to identify the "Ribbon Fighter" among the flying planes, to no avail. Both the boy and the barkeep's daughter then went with some fleeing Erusian troops to try and find Thirteen.

The boy and girl followed Thirteen all the way to Farbanti, and witnessed his final skirmish with his "worthy opponent". As Thirteen was shot down, the boy and girl noticed Yellow 4's handkerchief fluttering toward them. The boy buried the handkerchief, and reflected that Thirteen died happy. At some point, he found out that a pilot called "Mobius One" shot him down. He then wrote a series of letters to Mobius One, explaining why Thirteen was important to him and if he knew what happened to him.

Nothing is known about what happened to the boy after the Siege of Farbanti, though the last cutscene showed him writing the letter as an adult.