Thread: Strike Witches 442nd Air Wing [RP]

Originally Posted by Okazaki Tomoya

Unlike the other witches, she kept her weapons (...)

OOC: Nah, you're not the only one to follow (some) regulations here.

***

Aura startled, then grabbed her jacket, happy that she had been checking her wardrobe instead of going to have a wash. She saw Blackburn disappearing at the other end of the corridor, and ran after her.

Once Aura had her legs inside her battered strikers, she closed her eyes and took a deep, long breath. As the units started up, her bushy and a bit shaggy wolverine appendages extracted, first very reluctantly as usual, then suddenly sprouting out all the way in a split-second.

She took her loaded "Elephant Gun" and, just to be sure, attached one heavy extra magazine on her belt. She rolled to the underground runway, accelerated and took off just meters before the mouth of the hangar-cave. And there she was again, high above the waters of Urashima Bay, rapidly gaining more height to get in an attack position favorable for her Brewster strikers.

As Aura always went barefoot in the base, she had made up some of the distance Blackburn had gained at the dorm. Now Aura took a good look around, to see how many witches were already in the air, and possibly to get a glimpse of the enemy.

The alarm's noise immediately woke Hiroko up as she scrambled out of bed, grabbing the bundled katana from it's post and making her way towards the other side of the room. Immediately she tossed off the cloth cover, and secured the katana onto the belt at her waist before retrieving the 13 mm Type 99 that was next to a wall. She strapped this onto her back before sprinting out the door barefoot. It was a good thing that she had chosen to sleep in her usual garb. Already she could hear the other witches starting up their strikers and taking off, so she hurried with haste towards her striker in the hangar.

Wasting no time, once she had her legs in the strikers, Hiroko started the magic activation. The black ears and tail of the Kai inu sprouted quickly after the magic circle disappeared. Shortly afterwards, the Fuso witch was cleared for takeoff. The striker and it's pilot accelerated and flew out of the mouth of the cave-hangar. She spotted two familiar looking figures already up in the sky heading towards the enemy. After drawing the katana from its sheath, Hiroko eventually caught up with the two.

Having retrieved her weapon and extra ammo boxes, Haley ran back to the hanger and mounted up, igniting the flow of magic and diverting it into the props. her black and brown ears sprouted from her head and her tail from the small of her back.

once outside, she ignored the runway, giving herself a surge of magic and boosted herself straight up, loading and cocking the LMG. once orented, she followed after the three other witchs.

"It looks like a normal attck vessel!" she called out as she approached Hiroko.

Indeed it looked like many of the mass produced ships that the black cloud had produced near britiana. as the first two witches approached the black and red ship, the rear beams began to fire, not changing its course.

Karin was out in the hall running before she even translated the message in her mind. her panzershrek strapped behind her and the 20 mm in her hands. She jumped and somersaulted, dropping into her striker with ease, and powered up the jets.

This was her specialty, scramble situations and sneak attacks. She let the four other witches begin engagements and took off normally, hugging the ground and then following a perfect 90 degree up course, to intercept the neuroi. she was speeding near her limit when she opened up with the gun, veering left at the critical axis, and cutting the jets, a tactic she'd done a million times before, against neuroi and standard aircraft alike. she ended up behind the craft, still under momentum skyward, and still firing. small explosions of the rounds lit up the honeycomb, and just as she activated her prop engines, it turned it's lasers on her. fully expecting the shot, she blocked it with magical shields, and shot herself downward, out of the shot line for the top rear guns. she slipped the 20 mm into the holster, and began lining up her panzershreck for a shot at exposing the core.

"sorry i was late, still having trouble with your langauge" she said to the other four

Haley zoomed over the neuroi, strafing its fuselage, avoiding what beams she could, and dfelecting the others with her shield. almost as soon as the bullets hit the shit the glass-like being began to regenerate, making it hard to slow it down. by this time the dogfight had carried further away from the base and over hte ocean.

Damn, they reached it fast.

Everybody was attacking the Neuroi from the same side, more or less. Aura would have liked to help surround the enemy, making sure it could not avoid them and continue towards the shores of Kyūshū. But she knew her engines were not powerful enough, so she just kept soaring upwards.

If my friends can take care of you, that's all good and well. And should you prove to be a trickier one, I will give you a suprise or two. Of the more explosive kind.

She waited for the shot and as she circled around it it presented itself, one of the others had drawn it's fire for a fraction of a second.

The tube jerked, the missile fire spewed out the back, and the rocket launched straight and true. Karin placed the tube on her back once more, and anticipating a counterattack, powered up her jets, prepping the thrust. the return shot came, as the rocket collided with the side of the craft, exploding in a fireball that covered most of the neuroi. But appearances in explosions can be deciving as Karin knew all to well, and she pushed her jets throttle forward to the maximum, pulling out the 20mm and firing a spray of bullets. she shot to the right, narrowly avoiding the concentrated fire from the lazers, and went fully evasive, not wanting to take any of those hits.

"It's all You!" She yelled to anyone available.

She turned to see the crater, but the smoke did not reveal how deep it was in the craft.

Elysse suddenly rocketed ahead. She didn't dare fire, no, she dodged fire from the enemy and pulled out a brass knuckle. Settlign above a 'wing' of the Neuroi. Winding up, she punched, and her barrier extended, several circles each of diminishing diameter, until it pierced the Neuroi through. That's when a second hand let loose with her B.A.R., stiching the insides with .30-06 rounds before she swerved out of the way from enemy fire, dropping a pineapple 'nade into the hole. The thing slowed down though, as was her intention.

despire the seemingly grievous damage dont to the wing of the ship, the neuroi slowed and jettisoned the remaining damaged wing and began to regenerae it, begining to slurr about in a weak attempt to aviod its harrassers.

Haley swooped over to Elysse.

"you okay? i noticed a few of the shots glance off your shields." while talking she was disconnecting the remaining ammo from the almost spent box and connected a new one to her johnson LMG. wielding the 2 foot long line of bullets like a whip, she hurled them forward using her gift to make it fly as fast as any sigle round from the chamber.

the line spun end over end before neatly slicing through the opposite wing, depriving the neuroi of its other appendage. depirved of lift, it dropped a few hunder feet before recovering and opening up with all lser batteries at the two liberion girls.

Aura had just reached a good position to start her dive attack from, when Campbell's firing caused the enemy to drop like a stone. It regained control of its movements seconds later, though.

Aura recalculated her desired course and began a mad dive combining the power of her strikers' engines and the effect of their mass. Simultaneously she kept aiming with her anti-tank rifle to get the first shot as clean as possible.

It had once happened that she had fired at an undamaged Neuroi ship and hit exactly the right point by sheer luck. Her rifle's armor-piercing bullet had penetrated all structures; a most spectacular kill.

But Aura was not expecting that to happen again, as she kept tightening her finger on the trigger very, very slowly.

Don't you notice me too early, you damn monster. Lemme give you a good bite first.

Aura's first shot rang clear and easily sliced through the armor of the Neuroi. with a tremmbling hum and sudden deceleration, the ship began to again lose altitude.

but despite apearances, the neuroi has simple changed tactics.

as the tail end dropped and the front nosed up, it began to stall out until bright white line appeare running from stem to stern both on top and bottom. the moment the vessel was at a ninety degree angle there was a compressed axplosion as a Liberion-football-shaped drilled straight up.

it was covered in crimson panels denoting offensive beam weapons and as it gained altitude, every last panel began to fire, some at random, some targeting the airborne witched, positivly flooding the air with oddly thin shots.

"COMPRESSED SHOTS!" someone yelled, "MOVE!"

Aura had not faced a Neuroi releasing anything like this before. Sure, this possibility had been mentioned on one theory lesson, but...

What to do? She was headed straigth towards the enemy at a ridiculously high speed. Altering course now would make it difficult to effectively use her shield.

Aura reacted half on instinct, half with desperation. She started braking very cautiously and prepared to shield, but continued to dive, unwilling to waste her attack position.

A foolish and stubborn decision.

She was firing without a pause now, but her gun's fire rate was only one round per two seconds. The first shot without good aiming missed. The second hit something, but she could not determine whether it made any difference. And even though she had began her attack at a much longer range than the others, she would soon be dangerously close to the deadly fireworks ahead.

"Nuorala, the hell you doing?!!" she heard someone shout, and got back to her senses.

Now there was little choice left. Aura pushed the hot barrel of her gun against her body with her left hand, making a futile attempt to control a magical shield in the direction of the enemy with her right. She wanted to change her course into a gentler dive to the opposite direction, but lost control of her strikers at the worst moment and ended up in a wild spin towards the sea surface.

"NOOO!" she cried out before realizing that nobody would be able to help. She had taught coping with this kind of stuff to beginners, now was the time to prove her piloting skills worked under combat conditions.

As Aura plummetted, Haley gave chase, screaming uninteliggibly. with a series of sonic booms, haley appeared near the out of control pilot and grabbed her around the waist, using her power tomove horizontally and correct the other's flight path. after a moment, haley released arua and looked at the remaining 30 feet between them and the water.

meanwhile, the crimson shape was losing altitude and had ceased its firing, apparently not a self propelled vehicle, but just a deployable weapon.

"It was a bomber...." haley sighed, exhausted. she'd never used so much power in one burst.

the neuroi began to disolve and the battle was over.

Karin saw no more laserfire in her direction and stopped her evasion, only to feel her arm go numb. she was barely able to catch her panzershreck tube with her right arm when she noticed the hole clean through. She had managed to avoid all the shots she had thought. but then her left striker began to sputter. SHe looked down and saw smoke pouring out the side, where a small cut had sliced through the jet engine. and saw the blood. she had taken one hit, but it looked like no more than a deep graze. She switched to props for the return trip, and winced visibly everytime she looked at her nasty cut. thankfully, as with all wounds inflicted by neuroi, it was cauterized. but it still looked rather nasty. as she joined up with the rest she noticed two of the girls at low altitude, but they seemed fine enough. she had problems of her own. now that the jet engine on her left side was more or less dead weight, she had to keep pumping power into the prop on that side to keep her flying straight. this, along with the wound was becoming a problem, as she steadily began to become very tired.

She was falling in and out of consciousness the return trip, and although it seemed like a dream, lost her panzershreck tube, as it plumetted into the sea. SHe half crashed, half landed, and just laid there, dead asleep.

--------------dream sequence----------
" Zi new engines vi put on zi striker units for you vill provide you vith higher velocity, vhile draining your magical power considerably" the engineer said

"but won't that be a problem while i'm fighting?" Karin said in Karlsan(german)

"No, zi fact is, you vill adapt to zi extra drain and become a stronger vitch for zi reich!"

" I don't know about this..."

--------------------------

She woke in her bunk, bandages covering her torso, the laser torn jacket she had worn hung on the wall, an brand new one neatly folded on her nightstand, along with the Reich youth dagger she had. on a chair accross the room sat a familiar face, it took her a moment to remember...HANS! it was Hans her crew cheif! she thought he was dead.

She sat up, and looked around. Where was Lucille?

"where's my Panzershreck Hans?" she said.

"Is that how you treat your Brother?" he said with a chuckle.

"Hans, it is good to see you, but i dreampt i lost it to the sea..." she drifted off.

"you did indeed. one of the other girls saw you drop it, but we haven't located it. they said there was a sizable hole. Frankly they were more concerned with watching you. you barely got back without them carrying you." he said solemly.

Hans' english was nearly perfect, but they were talking in Karlsan, for Karin liked it better.

"I brouht you something from the Furher"he said.

He reached behind himself and pulled a steel tube, a bazooka from liberon, with two caps on it.

"the bazooka is your backup, but what is inside is your gift." he said as he laid it in front of her.

She took off one of the caps, an out slid a saber, the scabbard blood red, ingraved with the karlsland flag in gold on one side and the symbol of the luftwaffe on the other. She pulled the blade out and it was inlaid with gold all the way down, a false blood groovefilled with gold.

"It is Titanium." Hans continued, "unbreakable and sharper than steel. this sword was commisioned for your use, it has been named Lucillie"

Karin sat stunned. The furher must value her indeed. There were only three of these swords made previously. it will make a fine replacement for that venerable tube.

Karin got out of bed, and dressed herself, strapped lucillie on her belt, and held the dagger to her chest.

"Hail to the Fatherland! Hail!" she recited. When she was done with the small ritual, she asked," How's the striker?"

"I fixed the engine, and installed a magic energy doubler, allowing you to use half the energy to power the jets. something i have worked on for the last year."

"Good." she was absolutely giddy, and hugged her brother and crew cheif tightly.

(777 posts!)

I would've made it myself! Aura thought bitterly, and almost blurted that out. But not quite.

"Ta-, Thank you, Ca-, Cambel. Thank you much much."

As Haley Campbell slowly let go of her waist, making sure that she was flying steadily again, Aura touched her own cheek.

It's hot and moist. Am I wounded somewhere in the head?

Then she realized it was tears rolling down. She gulped and wiped them off.

"Ow, I hurt my bak. Vear iss tee... enemy now?"

Haley gave a sigh of releave, noticing that her eyes were watering a bit as well.

"oh, i uh, think the enemy is done."

off in the distance were the gradually disintigating remains of the neuroi ship and the other witches gradually returning to the base.

later, haley trotted into hte infermary with a small bunch of flowers in a vase and an Libieron soft drink.

"Hey Karin. you feeling okay?" haley stopped short seeing she already had a visitor. "s-sorry. i didn't mean to interupt. i'll....just leave these here. get better okay?" and with that Haley began to walk out.

Karin smiled, and Hans stepped infront of Haley to prevent her leaving.

"Frauline Campbell please, don't mind Hans, come sit" she said in accented english, "Hans is my brother und mechanic. He vas simply giving a report on ze repairs done to my striker."

Karin was almost giddy that one of the Liberon girls had even noticed her.

When the Liberon girl sat, Hans excused himself.

"So, Haley is it? I trust zat no one elz recived any vounds?" she said.

"A few scratches and burns, but nothing really serious. as i hear it, you should be flying soon too."

Haley sat on the end of the bed, grinning from ear to ear.

"honestly, im glad you stopped me. i don't think i have many friends here. just teammates."

Karin smiled. Finally she was able to make friends outside of the luftwaffe.

"Yes, ze doctorz did a good job. Zey say it vas never really serious, but understand vhy i vas so drained. it vas more to do with keeping ze striker stable on ze return trip." she said, "But enough on ze past! Take a look at zhis!"

Karin pulled the saber out of it's scabbard and laid it infront of her on the bed.

With great pride she described the history behind such blades, and the significance of her recieving one.

"In all essensce, zhis means i am no longer an Unterleuteanant but a "Überkommandant durch Titel" Which means, "Overcommander by title" basically i outrank everyvone in ze luftwaffe right now, honorarally." she explained

"That's really impressive. I sometimes feel like nothing but a cadet the way im treated in the Liberion Air Force."

Haley made a face and imitared an older male's voice.

'The battlefield is no such place for a small girl suck as sourself!'

haley laughed, knowing full well that she was better suited to combat with the neuroi than any male.