Here's the first chapter of what I call the "Steam Blowing Story" where I will vent some ideas I've thought up that aren't part of the current story I'm writing for Witches of Liberion. So, short stories here might not have any canonical ideas from my main story but who knows... Might integrate an idea here and there in the main story. Now before I leave you lot who came here to read... Which I hope isn't few, I'd like to thank Colonel Amiruddin Arif for giving me the idea from his story, "The Ecnounter" If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it and his others works as well. Now onto the story!
Other Worlders
Flying in formation, a squadron of P-38 Lightning patrolled the skies. In the lead formation was one of America's top ace, and a female to boot, is Emily Vermillion with 48 kills in her Lightning alone. There's a really good reason why the German pilots she flies against have nicknamed the Lightning as der Gabelschwanz-Teufel, the Fork-Tailed Devil. Though as times move on, people were slowly moving on from the Lightning but Emily has stood strong since the beginning. Now she's flying at about 4000 meters high on an air combat patrol when a glint of light catchers her attention.
"Bogies, 2 o'clock low!" she pointed out to her other squad mates. "I count at least 4 of them. They're Messerschmitts!"
"And I don't think they've spotted us either, 2nd Lieutenant," another squad mate pointed out.
"Though we have to make this one quick! I'm running low on fuel!" another voice spoke up as Emily checked her fuel gage as well and nodded.
"We've got enough for this engagement," she said when she noted the German planes passed below her and were banking left. "But for now, lets pounce on these Jerry bastards!" She rolled her plane over and went into a dive, her other squad mates followed as well. Aiming for the lead plane, she waited till the last second to pull the trigger, letting rip the 4 12.7mm bullets and single 20mm cannon, ripping apart the 109 in seconds. The enemy planes scattered and Emily broke off to pursue after one of the planes, in the process losing her wingman. Using different engine throttle levels, she expertly flew her plane around, positioning herself behind the unexpected 109 with her finger poised over the trigger when black storm clouds started to surround her.
"What the hell!?" she shouted looking around her canopy. "Command never said anything about any storm clouds in the area!" She gripped the yoke hard as the plane was fighting some sort of wind, her instruments going absolutely haywire. A bright light soon started to blind her causing her to miss the transformation her plane was going under. The wings were beginning to sweep backwards, the thin tri-bladed props were changed to quadra-bladed paddle-props, and much larger engines were fitted to the twin booms of the air craft. "Don't blame me if I'm missing brother..." was the last she muttered as she was consumed with the bright light. She soon found herself back to normal conditions in her cockpit. Her vision was no longer impaired due to the light and she looked herself over finding everything was intact.
"What the hell was that strange light... And where is everyone?" She looked around her for her squad mates when she finally noticed the changes on her plane. She was quite confused with the swept wing layout of her plane and even more confused with the tone of her engines. She gave the throttle a slight push listening to a new beast rumble in her plane. "This is getting too weird for me..." She mumbled when she tried to radio for base only to get nothing. She tried again getting the same result when she saw a black object in the distance.
'Well, if it isn't' friendly, then I will find out soon enough,' she though as she banked the plane over, finding the handling of the plane felt much better to her. As she drew closer to the unknown object, it suddenly banked and started to fly towards her. When it turned, it gave off the silhouette of a large flat arrow. This strange shape started to give Emily some cold feet when a red hot laser beam rocketed past her canopy.
"FUCK ALL KINDS OF FUCKING DUCK! NOT FRIENDLY, NOT FRIENDLY!" She yelled, nosing the plane over into a dive. Looking straight up, she saw the mystery object at a very close distance. Her canopy was blotched out by a black and red looking object with a hexagonal design on it. She didn't question what she was fighting as her life hung in the balance of her current actions. Pulling back on the stick, she was surprised how quickly and light the planes felt in higher speed turn. Usually the controls felt like they were starting to luck up at these high speeds. It still was a workout making the yoke go where she wanted it, but she quickly got on the objects tail. "This is pay back!" She pressed the trigger for a long burst and 20mm shells along with 12.7mm bullets ripped through it's armor causing it to screech. It retaliated with multiple laser beam shots causing Emily to maneuver out of the way the bast she could when it disengaged from her. Moments before the encounter, a squad of six flying girls were speeding along towards the battlefield.
"Minna," a brown haired girl with twin pigtails asked, "any idea how much farther we need to go?"
"We're closing in on it's last spotted location Trude," the red haired Witch in question answered. "Mio, can you see the Neuroi yet?"
"One second." Mio flipped her eye patch up, using her magic eye to see into the distance but only gasped. "What the hell is a Liberion pilot doing out this far alone!? And why is he trying to engage a Neuroi in a traditional fighter!? I've never seen those markings on a plane ever."
"A Liberion pilot out this far? Change of plans! Trude, Erica, Mio, and I will try and pull the Neuroi away from the pilot. Ember, and Shirley, you two will try and make contact with the pilot and get him out of the combat zone! Any question?" she got silence in return. "All right, Strike Witches! Move out!"
Just as they had planned, the Neuroi took the bait to Emily's confusion. She was about to peruse when she heard tapping on the canopy glass.
'Wait, tapping!?' Snapping her head to the origin of the noise, she came face to face with a girl flying next to her plane, bunny ears poking out of her head. She isn't wearing any pants with a BAR in hand an a weird flying contraption strapped to her legs. She was stunned by her sudden appearance when she tapped her ear and started to flash numbers with her fingers. Emily gave a blank stare back before she realized what Shirley wanted her to do. Switching over her radio frequency, she tried to speak.
"Can you hear me?"
"I can hear you loud and clear!" the red headed Liberion said when the second one of the two sent over Emily, looked into the canopy.
'So that's the mystery pilot... A girl?' Ember thought to herself as she looked at the pilot, but she soon was starting to gain a feeling of familiarity with her as well. 'Have I... Met her before?'
"Uummm... How are you two... Flying exactly?" the American pilot asked the two Witches.
"Shouldn't you know about the Striker Unit?" Ember questioned the girl.
"Striker unit?"
"Never mind that, what are you even doing out here in the first place!? You know that the air space around Britannia has lots of Neuroi activity around the area!"
"Neuroi? Britannia? What are you even talking about?"
"Why I oughta-" Shirley started to shake her fist out of annoyance when Ember intervened quickly.
"Wait, where do you think you are at this moment?"
"Where I am? Why, I should be over England fighting the Germans. Hell, I was just on a fighter patrol when I was... I guess dumped here."
"Shirley! Ember! Neuroi's turned around and coming back at you three fast!" Looking over her shoulder, Emily saw the Neuroi coming in fast. The two other girls she was just talking with were to close to pull up or roll away so she pushed the yoke forward into a dive. Her vision started to go red as blood was forced into her head before she was pulling even harder G's as she pulled up into a right turn. Rolling over, she checked her six seeing the Neuroi was hot on her tail and she wasn't going to have any of this.
"Come on you son of a bitch, show me what you've got!" she growled as she gripped the throttle and steering controls hard. Turning hard onto a knife edge, cutting the engines slightly she essentially pulled the breaks on the plane as it skidded through the sky bleeding speed causing the Neuroi to over shoot. Flattening the plane out and pushing the throttle up to the WEP setting, she quickly gained more speed when a laser beam caught her attention once more. "Persistent son of a bitch... You girls think you can assist me here!?" She called out to the fellow Witches as they dropped in behind the Neuroi.
"Of course! EAT LEAD NEUROI!" Ember yelled as she let louse on the Neuroi, chipping away at it's armor. The Neuroi broke off from Emily enough for her to snap the plane around and lined it up within her cross hairs.
"Eat lead," she said quite coldly, squeezing a long burst out of her guns. The combined fire power of the two Witches and fighter pilot was enough to get through the armor and destroy the core. It exploded into white flakes surprising Ember as she flew right through the debris. It plunked off her plane hard making a noise resembling her pane being shot up by an enemy. Looking at her left wing, she saw that some of the plane's skin was torn, but worst of all was that she was starting to leak what valuable fuel she had left. "Agh, is there any where to land this kite!?" she asked aloud.
"This is Colonel Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke, commander of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, you can follow us to our base to land but I will have a few questions when we get back." Looking out to the left, she saw a red haired girl with animal ears popping out of her head as well in the same weird mechanical machine the other two girls she met earlier. Soon more girls formed up around her plane and it was about time that she stopped doubting what she was saying. Relaxing, she let her arms drape and let out a sigh of relief only to grab the control sticks again and follow the Witches. Deploying landing flaps and gear, she touched down to only frown as she never got this thud of the wheels touching down. Looking out the side of her plane, making sure she actually got wheels down, she saw a rather peculiar sight of a blue magical circle underneath her. Though she was also glad to get wheels down as well for the engines cut off as she parked the plane off to the side of the runway, giving room for the Witches to land. Getting out of her plane, she was confronted again by the many Witches of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing.
"Now that we have time to talk, I've got a few questions for you." Minna said, stepping forwards. "First of all, can you please state your name and rank." Coming to attention, Emily saluted the commander before stating her name and rank.
"2nd Lieutenant Emily Vermillion of the United States of America Army Air Force. I belong to the 370th Fighter Squadron."
"Wait, Vermillion? And what is this America you speak of?" Ember questioned when Erica spoke up.
"What if she isn't from around here?" Erica calmly asked the group, her hands behind her head as she yawned.
"What do you mean by the Hartmann?" Trude questioned her fellow Karlslandian friend.
"Well, she doesn't know where she is or what the Neuroi are, she doesn't know about Striker Units, she appeared randomly out here, and the fact that she's from America... Which is I have no idea where or even if it exists."
"Not to mention mine and her name are extremely similar." Ember said, walking up to Emily. "For I am 2nd Lieutenant Ember Vermillion of the United States of Liberion Army Air Force and formerly part of the 370th Fighter Squadron." Further questions were asked and more of them answered but that still left a whole bunch of unanswered questions they all had. They finally excepted that she was from a different dimension and she flies with the 501st Witches fighting the Neuroi. As time went on for Emily, more and more aces from her world started to appear like American pilot Charles E. Yeager, Royal Canadian Air Force pilot Arthur Bishop, German ace Erich Hartmann and more to come. Each and every Ace that has came to the Witches world were at first shocked to how they were transported to the new strange world where pant-less girls fight giant black monster type creatures with metal machines strapped to their legs. Though what surprised them the most was how the Witches reflected to the Aces. They soon excepted each other and made conclusions that each were related as the incarnation of each other in their own worlds, Arthur to Lynnette, Ember to Emily, Gerhard to Gertrud etcetera, etcetera. The aces fit in quite well amongst the Witches and it came to a surprise that each Ace had similar abilities to the Witch counter parts of them. Though a few exceptions and differences are between their abilities, they are relatively the same.
About five months have passed since the first ace arrived to the Witches world and each ace has been appearing in a rather similar fashion of a black storm cloud consuming them before a flash of light blinds them. Some come in after combat while other's nearly shot down the existing aces in the Witches world after making contact. But one wasn't as lucky when he entered the world. One more pilot, and ace, is to enter the Witches universe who is specially trained to fight the battles where no one can see; the battles that take to the night sky.
A lone P-61 Black Widow American heavy night fighter roamed the skies above Europe, hunting for any targets of opportunity. The pilot of the plane America's highest and most successful night ace with 32 kills under his belt. He, and his two other crew members were out yet again, hunting down German Me 410's and there have been reports of only one aircraft are in the area.
"Any sign of the enemy Jeramy?" The pilot asked.
"I got a single blip off in the distance. I think this is our target Blake," the radar operator responded.
"Watch me Emily, I will catch up to you soon..." Blake said under his breath.
"You're saying that again Blake." Adam, in the back of the aircraft said over the radio. "We know how much you love your sister and think that she's still alive but... No one's seen her since she had gone missing." Blake Vermillion is his full name and ever since his sister disappeared, he joined the air force to follow in her foot steps.
"Shut it and be ready for anything. Jeramy, give me directions."
"You got it." Jeramy responded and started to relay commands for Blake to follow when he thought he saw the plane before pulling over the night time binoculars to confirm it was an enemy. Getting in closer he reached optimal firing and easily shot the unsuspecting 410 down within seconds of lining up the target.
"Nice shooting Blake!" Adam cheered from his position in the back of the plane and Blake let out a sigh of relief. Pulling around the plane, he flew at cloud top level, the stars and moon illuminating them ever so slightly as he headed back towards his base as he was running out of fuel
"That makes your thirty-third kill Blake! Nice job!" Jeramy congratulated his friend and Blake smiled to himself, knowing he made the night a bit of a safer place for his journey home. Yawning slightly, he closed his eyes for a second, taking in a deep breath. Opening his eyes again, he was rather confused what was going on. He felt a burning sensation in his right arm and leg and a splitting head ache as well when he heard machine gun fire as well. Placing his hand up to his head, he pulled away to find some sort of liquid reflecting the moon light. Looking to the side did he see holes in the canopy and some metal ripped apart on the wings as well. Only when he looked down did the pain from the shrapnel buried in his leg hit him.
"B-Blake, you still there?" Adam asked quite weakly as the machine gun died down.
"Adam. W-What the hell is going on?" Blake asked, breathing a bit more heavily as he throws his head back in pain.
"E-enemy 410 jumped us... Jeramy had all ready bugged and bailed while I... I took care of the 410..." Adam's voice was getting weaker as he talked concerning Blake greatly.
"H-Hey! Adam, stay with me! We're going to get home, I promise!"
"Heh... Thanks for being my pilot man, it's been fun..." Blake tried his best to keep talking to him but he himself was losing conscious as he lost more blood and to make things worse a storm cloud enveloped his plane.
'Can this get any worse!?' he thought to himself as he started to fight the controls to keep his plane in the air. A light started to blind his vision causing him to throw his hand over his eyes, blinding him to the point where he didn't notice the cockpit of the P-61 starting to morph around. It was enlarging and changed positions on the plane as well a few known unknown pieces of technology appeared to the left side of the cockpit. A joystick and monitor formed to the left side of the cockpit while another screen on the right side appeared as well before he was completely consumed by the light.
In the Witches world, Sanya and the ace she is equated with, Lydia Litvyak, along with Blaze flew together in the night sky. For a while, since Lydia came to this world, she's been going out on flights with her "twin sister" and have been quite enjoying it. Tonight was no exception for a full moon was out and the skies were void of any clouds. The moon illuminated the sky in a light blue glow and the two were conversing, buying time for the night to go on when Sanya's magical antennas changed from green to red.
"There's something also in the skies..." she stated quietly causing Lydia to become more alert. "It's a large object due north from us about six kilometers away from us."
"And I can confirm that," Blaze added when a distorted radio transmission was coming.
"Ca-... -ny one-... me."
"Hey, Sanya, did you catch that?" Lydia asked Sanya.
"Boosting frequency."
"C-Can anyone hear me?" the voice on the other end of the radio frequency was now clear to Lydia and she answered.
"Unidentified craft, we can hear you. My name is Lydia Litvyak so please, hold your position until my partner and I can make contact with you." Lydia responded, a ting of worry in her voice for the other pilot, Blake, seemed rather distressed. From Blake's point of view, which is currently out of one eye since the other one had blood in it, he could see some movement to the South and coming towards his position. He could make out two small green light as well but he thought his mind was playing tricks on him as he saw a silver haired young girl with a rocket launcher and another red haired girl with a machine gun flying towards him. He had a slight sense of recognition with the red haired girl, but he blamed the blood loss on this one. As the three girls came within visual range, Lydia frowned as she saw the shape of the plane was in.
'So this is another pilot... One in plane I've never seen before but it's not looking in the best condition as well.' Lydia thought to herself, seeing smoke belching from the left engine while also the wing itself was torn up.
"Pilot, what is your condition?" Lydia asked calmly, concern creasing her face as she looked at the pilot. He was rather pale but what concerned her the most was the trickle of blood going down his face.
"Injured from an enemy attack and one severely injured. But what's a Russian pilot doing here... And why do I understand you?" Blake asked just as Lydia and Sanya formed up around him. "And am I hallucinating or is there a silver and red haired girl flying next to me, wearing some weird mechanical object?"
"Please, save your breath. We're going to escort you back home, just stay awake until we land."
"Sure... Thing... Ah shit."
"What? What's wrong?" Blaze asked.
"Manifold pressure... Dropping. Engine one is shutting down."
"Everything thing will be fine. Just keep on flying, we're nearly back to our base." Soon Minna came online to get a report for the Night team and they reported another pilot made it to their world but it wasn't under the greatest of circumstances.
"I see... I'm getting the other Aces and Witches up to help with the landing in case anything goes... Wrong."
"Copy that, Minna."
As the group in the air slowly nurse the injured bird back to base, all personal were on stand-bye with all lights turned o. Aces and Witches on the side ready for a crash landing to hose down any fire while the rest watch in anticipation. Minutes later, the distinct drone of engines could be heard off in the distance and soon the two planes and Witch came sight. With Sanya and Lydia circling above, they let the P-61 land but with slight problems. Inside of the cockpit, Blake started to breath quite heavily and his vision was starting to blur and tunnel out.
"Pilot, do you hear me?" Minna asked and got a weak and labored yes. "I need you to pitch up slightly and cut your throttle a little more, you're coming in to hot." Adjusting, he compensated to the for dominant engine and luckily touched down when he started to fade out. Taxiing off to the side in not such a graceful way, he killed the engines just as he passed out. Rescue and medical crews quickly rushed over to the Widow while some of the Aces talked amongst themselves.
"You've seen that type of plane before?" Arthur asked before Chuck nodded his head with some recognition.
"A Northtrop P-61 Black Widow. Haven't seen one up close but it's still a mystery to me on how that thing can fly. It weights 11 tons!"
"Not sure about you my fellow, but I think our Me 410 can out beat that giant kite of yours." Gerhard grunted as he saw the rescue crew open up the cockpit and start to pull the pilot out.
"Wait, Blake!?" Emily yelled, running over to the body.
"You know him?" Pierre questioned Emily, as Blake was carted away from the plane, into the hanger where Yoshika was waiting, ready to help.
"Yes..." she said, sounding quite distant. "He's my brother, Blake Vermillion."
"Oooohhhh, so he's Blaze's counter part right?" Shirley asked, quite excitedly when Chuck started to walk towards the P-61.
"Something up, Chuck?" Franco asked as the American looked at the plane before talking to some of the ground crew.
"There's three people who go up in a Black Widow and only one came out. Where's the other two?" The crew only shook their head saying they don't know anything about the plane and Chuck understood that. He disappeared inside of the plane while Emily and Ember followed Yoshika back into the base's emergency room while other aces went up to the plane to find Chuck appear again in the cockpit with heavy eyes.
"What's the verdict?" Erich asked and Chuck only sighed. The medical crew that were left took that sign to get a tarp and stretcher.
"Radar operator looks like bailed but the gunner... He's dead." The aces looked down in silence while some of the Witches present gasped. Perrine fainted and Muto caught her before she hit the ground while Trude looked off to the side, her fists clenched. "From the damage I see on the outside, the gunner, and the inside of the plane, something totting 20mm cannons shot at this plane."
"What year was this plane introduced?" Eino asked looking at it.
"Well... To be honest, I'm not sure but I'm guessing something around 1944 since none of us have really seen or heard of this plane before. I only know about it from a friend of mine."
"1944 eh... The Me 410 is the biggest suspect for the attack. Do 217's weren't used as much up by that point." Eino said just as Chuck got out of the plane. Behind him, the ground crew removed a tarp covered body from the plane and all the aces and Witches saluted the poor soldier that was KIA'd. The body was taken away and Minna gave the word for Sanya, Lydia, and Blaze to get back into the air to continue their patrol. The other Aces and Witches soon went back to their rooms and feel asleep. Emily and Ember spent the rest of their night in the infirmary, after Yoshika finished healing up Blake's wound. The next day Blake woke up from his sleep feeling rather swell for being a person that was shot up and was rather surprised to see his sister holding his hand while she was leaning against the bed, fast asleep. On the his left side was an unknown girl with shoulder length red hair slightly slumped over in a chair and for some reason, he had a feeling of recognition with her. Moving around slightly into a sitting position must have been enough to wake Emily up for she started to stir and lift her head up only to come eye to eye with her brother.
"Blake!" She yelled, quite literally throwing herself at her brother.
"H-Hey there Emily..." He stuttered slightly but soon hugged a long lost sister of his. "I've missed you so much..." Catching some movement with the corner of his eye, he pulled away to see the second girl in the room was awake and smiling at him. "Who might you be?"
"How to explain... Well, easiest way of explaining all of this is that she's out little sister." Emily went on to explain what their situation was when Blake looked down at himself. Only then did he notice that he was shirt and pant-less and saw that his clothes were set to the side, bloodied and torn slightly.
"Hey... Where's Adam?"
"Who?"
"Adam, there was a second person in my plane when I arrived," he explained and both Ember and Emily looked down giving Blake the message that he had passed. "Ah... He's gone... He was a good kid, one of the best god damn turret gunner I've had..." Getting out of bed after the girls left for him to change into his clothes, he was brought down to breakfast and introduced to the rest of the group when Minna announced that he would be accepted into the 510st JFW Aces Group. Everyone dressed up to see the body of the fallen pilot out of the base and things were taken slowly for the next few days but soon everything seemed normal. Blake was taking to the skies with Lydia, Sanya, and Blaze giving the night team enough people so the "twins" can break away and cover a much larger area. Blake was getting used to the new set up his plane had where it turned from a three man crew to a single crew fighting aircraft and his first kill was with the remote controlled quad machine gun turret in the top of the aircraft. Flying the plane with his right hand while his left was operating the joystick for the machine gun, eyes nearly glued to the screen showing the Neuroi behind him. He had also modified the plane with the extra room he now has to get more ammunition for the turret guns and cannons ammo while also getting more fuel for longer flights.
From the aces arrival, they were seen as strange people for the Witches but as the weeks went on, they've been excepted and added to their daily lives. Fighting, flying, and bringing humanity closer to a victory against the Neuroi. Though in the background, Erica's sister, Ursula Hartmann and her research team have been working round the clock not only developing more Strikers but also a way for the Aces return to their time. They all knew the time was getting closer for them to return, but for now, they have a war to fight.
As a side note at the end of this chapter, my updates will be further in between than the weekly updating I've had on my story, Witches of Liberion, and that's because of the increase work load of school. I've got a chapter in progress, but it's working slowly so please, bare with me and I hope you've enjoyed reading this. Please, leave a review below if you want. I don't bite... Much...