An Expanding Threat

For now, please,
Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Drops of Red

"Barkhorn and Hartmann, go around it to the right. Shirley and Luuchini, go around it to the left. Minna and Perrine, stay in front of it. Lynne, stay where you are and continue with the long-ranged attacks. Miyafuji, follow me to the back for the core." Major Sakamoto Mio shouted out trying to make herself heard while the sound of bullets and the Neuroi's beams shouted in their ears.

"Roger!" They all responded and flew towards their designated positions.

Mio and Miyafuji took off below the Neuroi while for the core Miyafuji acted as a shield for the 2 of them while the Neuroi focused a little more on them since it understood that they tried to go for the core.

As the others kept it surrounded it didn't change its current direction as it kept going at the direction of their base. The two witches that went for the core got to the back of it and started their barrage at its rear.

After a few seconds they made a small hole in its hard armor and saw the red crystal that is the core, and was now focusing their fire to that spot while Miyafuji kept her shield up during their assault. Finally Mio got in the critical bullet on the core and the Neuroi ceased its attacks and with a blast the Neuroi shattered into a beautiful explosion of what looked like small white crystals.

"This one was almost as strong as the last one." Minna said to Mio as they closed in on each other. "It seems like the Neuroi's that is coming from the new hive in Gallia is a lot stronger that the ones from the previous one. I don't like this and I also heard from similar reports from the 502nd and the 505th squadron that the ones from the new hives up there are stronger than before as well." She said in a worried tone.

"Yeah, I know how you feel, and we have to get rid of these new hives as fast as possible." Mio replied. "But if anything comes up we can deal with it. There is nothing witches cannot do, isn't that right, Minna?"

Minna gave her a smile. "You're right. It has always been that way and it will probably continue being that way."

Mio gave her a smile as well before turning to the rest of the group. "Everyone, we're heading back to base."

"Roger!" Everyone replied back in at the same time.

The sun has begun to set as you could already see some stars in the sky over Romagna's coastline. Eila and Sanya were standing outside of the hangar waving at them and stood there patiently as the others were jumping out of their respective striker units, although Sanya was leaning against Eila's shoulder.

"You sure had a good time being able to keep sleeping while we have to go shoot down a Neuroi. But I'm sure it's equals out by you having the night patrol tonight. See you at lunch again." Erica said with a smile while passing by them.

"It's a rare occurrence to see you two meeting us at the way back of a mission." Miyafuji said as she met up with the two witches that were left back at the base.

"Well, you see, we're a little bit hungry and since I'm having night patrol with Sanya tonight we might want to fill up our stomachs a bit." Eila said scratching the back of her head. "And since you make such great food we wondered if you could cook something for us quickly."

"Sure. I was going to cook food for everyone anyway so it's no problem." Miyafuji replied with a smile. "Sanya-san?"

"Hehe, we just woke up a little while ago so she is still a little sleepy. But if she just get to eat something she wake up."

"I'll go cooking something right away then." She said as she took off to the kitchen.

"Hey, Sanya? Wake up." Eila said trying to wake Sanya up as calmly as possible. But it really didn't matter that much since she woke up immediately as Shirley was running tests on her striker unit again. "Really? They just got back from a mission and she's already in full go to be testing it?"

"Eila?" Sanya sleepily said while doing her best to keep her eyes open while looking at Eila. "Can't we go inside? It's so noisy out here."

"Sure, we can sit and wait for the food by the table." Eila said while tried to keep Sanya from falling over while they walked inside from the roaring sound.

As dinner, they got some of Yoshika's Fuso soup special with a secret ingredient that none in the squad has been able to figure out yet.

And after the meal Eila and Sanya prepared themselves to sortie and went for the hangar. Lucchini passed by them and walked a little in front of them. "Thank you for doing the night patrol so I can sleep and play a lot more." She said but when they entered the hangar she then ran off and hastily climbed up on one of the beams in the celing where she already has a blanket and a pillow prepared.

Eila and Sanya picked their weapon of choice and jumped into their striker units and started up their engines and took off up through the clouds.

A few of the other witches in the base watched them take off from various windows throughout the building. And as it started to be pretty late most of them started to get sleepy and went to bed and ten minutes after the duo left the base, most of the lights in the building was turned off.

After being in flight for a little bit with a bit of acrobatic display and with Sanya matching in a frequency with a nearby radiostation, Sanya quietly started to humming a song as she flew stomach up. Eila flew around unaimlessly until she heard the sweet sound that came from her fairly passive and quiet scouting partner. She then suddenly closed the gap between them until she was only a feet away to hear the white-haired girl better.

While flying in silence with only Sanya's humming as the she cut off the radio broadcast, both of them calmed down immensely as it was extremely soothing. Eila relaxed a little too much as she forgot to use her magic to fly until she noticed that she fell a little.

Sanya descended to Eila's position as she stopped humming the song, as Eila regained her posture. "You want me to carry you while you listen?" The white-haired girl asked warmly with an equally warm smile.

Eila blushed as she turned blood-red and started to stutter. "I-Is it r-really okay?" She replied with a nervous yet eager voice.

The beige-haired witch has never been so nervous and stiffened up as she was in the arms of the one she loved the most. She was lying with her face against Sanya's soft chest and one of Sanya's arms on her back, and who which now was singing the lullaby that she has been humming on earlier, only this time it was directed to Eila.

As Eila stopped using her strikers and just focused on Sanya's song, she loosened up a bit and just let her mind float away with the wind that passed them by.

After a while Eila hesitantly reached her arms around Sanya's small body, much to Sanya's surprise, which was easily seen as she blushed faintly and with a smile able to make Eila fall dead on her feet. But now Eila had her eyes closed, and didn't care about anything in the world just for now.

After half an hour Sanya started to pant faintly, which caught Eila's attention. "Sanya? What's wrong?"

Sanya put on a little strained smile."It's nothing major. It is just that it consumes a little more magic than I thought when carrying another person."

Eila activated her striker unit immediately and jumped of Sanya's stomach. "Oh, sorry. But then it is my duty to do the same to you, isn't it?" She said with a bright smile and invited Sanya with her arm's wide open.

"I would love to, but my Fliegerfaust weights a lot, so would only be a burden." She replied with a fairly disappointed voice.

"Don't worry, I am more enduring than I look like. You should know that more than anybody."

"Of course I know that but I don't want you to exhaust your magic power like I did. Not that I really minded." Sanya said with a blushing smile.

"Hehehe… But that's exactly why I want to do this, so you can rest a little bit at least. So please, come here."

Eila was lying horizontally in the air and waited for Sanya to lie down on her stomach. Suddenly when Sanya was just about to lie down, Eila looked scared as she pushed Sanya away from her and suddenly a red beam passed between them.

"How could…" Sanya said confused. "I couldn't sense it at all."

"We can talk about that later but for now lets just kick its ass." Eila said with a confident smile, while charging towards where the beam came from. "Sanya, just be ready with your shield."

Diving down through the clouds they could see the one that fired the beams at them. It was a fairly long and not to wide Neuroi and not very thick and a sharp edge at the end of it. It looked a little like a black and red pencil.

"I go in close and draw the fire you stay here in the back." Eila ordered. "Bring it on, you big lump of… whatever it is!"

Diving in under the Neuroi while dodging the red beams Eila pulled the trigger of her MG42 and put a lot of holes in its armor, and Sanya let loose some rockets from her Fliegerfaust and blew some fairly big holes right through it.

"It doesn't look like it has a core, since we destroyed most of it." Eila said slightly annoyed while it regenerated its damaged parts.

"Don't tell me… it's just a drone?!" And just when Sanya said that she heard Eila yell through the transponder.

"SANYA! DODGE, SHIELD OR WHATEVER!"

And just as she turned around she saw a barrage of beams in her direction, and as she tried to dodge a beam, it hit and destroyed one of her strikers.

"SANYA!"

Eila could hear a panting girl through the radio. "I'm fine. It just got one of my strikers."

Eila then looked at the direction that the beams came from and saw 5 more identical apparent drones and a behind them she saw a smaller odd shaped Neuroi-part that seemed to be able to hold up to 6 of these drones. She tried to contact the base through her transponder. "HEY, MINNA, MIO OR ANYONE!? WE'RE UNDER HEAVY FIRE AND SANYA LOST ONE OF HER STRIKERS! ANYONE? HEY!"

With an irritated grunt she dodged the beams as she moved to Sanya's position. "The one with the core is most probably the one over there." Eila said and pointed to the odd one behind all the drones.

"Eila! Come in, Eila or Sanya!" They both heard Minna's voice from their transponders.

"Finally! Hurry up and send reinforcements, we won't last long at this rate!" Eila said in a tone that sounded more like an order, as she used her shield to protect Sanya. And from far away they could both hear the Neuroi-alarm from the base.

"We're on our way, so please hold on a little while longer." Minna said as she left the radio.

Also Eila could hear Sanya pant quite heavily while she also used her shield to protect them. "Eila, I can't keep this up for much longer! I'm running to low on magic."

"This is all my fault" Eila thought to herself. "If hadn't been so greedy I wouldn't have rested, while Sanya flew carrying me."

"Please, just a little while longer, until the others come here." She then said. "I try to draw their fire. You can back away so they won't attack you." Eila said and charged the odd shaped core unit, and sure enough she drew the fire from the most of the drones, but still two of them went for Sanya. "I have to hurry up and finish this, otherwise Sanya is in grave danger."

"Eila, don't be so rash." Sanya screamed after her as she tried her best not to get shot down herself.

Eila could hear Sanya's breathing getting heavier and heavier, and she was halfway through the barrage of beams of 4 drones, and thanks to her foresight magic she haven't been near of being hit.

"We're in flight right now, so please stay safe. Shirley is faster so we sent her away to you, so she would arrive any minute." They heard Mio say from the transponder.

"Thanks, since it's getting pret…" Was all she got to say until she got interrupted by Sanya's panting voice.

"Eila, and everyone! I'm sorry." She then heard from her transponder. "My magic will be depleted after a few more hits."

Eila stopped dead in her tracks. "SANYA! NO!" She screamed and turned around and pumped in as much magic as she could to boost her speed as much as possible. And as she was just a little bit away, Sanya's shield shattered and unconscious, she was sent flying backwards and she was now falling.

And just as Eila, who now had tears flowing uncontrollably, was able to touch Sanya, a beam was already on course and as Eila put up a shield to save Sanya, the shield didn't quite reach all the way and let the beam graze a bit of Sanya's arm and her stomach.

"SANYA!" Eila now screamed and grabbed hold of Sanya tightly and did her best in deflecting as many beams as possible with her shield, as she had problem evading the beams carrying another person. And at that moment Shirley made a driveby on the 2 drones that was the ones shooting at Eila and Sanya and drew the fire away.

Trying to find a soft spot to lay Sanya on in the forest below, Eila found one eventually and gently put her down. "Sanya! Hey, Sanya! Wake up, please! You can't die! You can't! Otherwise I…" Eila said in a crying voice as the tears wouldn't stop falling on Sanya's cheek, as Eila got mute. She bends down over Sanya's body. "MIYAFUJI! PLEASE SAVE SANYA!"

Chapter 1 End

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