"Sister"

It was early in the winter of 1945. Karlsland was enveloped in a white sheet as snow drifted down from the gray sky. Even though a war was still being fought, the streets of this city not far from the Gallian border showed signs of the upcoming holiday season. Gertrude Barkhorn was on her way to the hospital to see none other than her younger sister, Christiane Barkhorn, whom she affectionately calls "Chris". Trude's hair was untied and she wore a gray overcoat over her regular uniform.

Up three stories and she was at Chris's room. She quietly opened the door and saw her sister's head turned toward the window. Chris looked at the door as Trude entered.

"Hey," Trude said softly. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"It's in the middle of the day, sis. It's kind of hard to fall asleep."

Trude chuckled and pulled up a chair. She asked what Chris has been up to lately and Chris responded with the usual periodic checkups and physical rehabilitation as she still has some trouble walking.

"So. What have you been doing?" Chris asked.

"I'm still a Captain in the 501st. Sadly, it's slowly dissolving. Yoshika went to college to study, Lynnette has to help her sister take care of their mother, Perrine has been transferred and became Squadron Leader of the 506th, Lucchini was summoned to Romagna by the Duchess, the major and Minna are past retirement age for witches... Pretty much just leaves me, Hartmann, and the Liberion. It's tough, but we get the job done. More Neuroi to increase one's kill count I guess."

"Are you going to miss it too?" Chris asked. Quietly she added, "Since your approaching retirement age too?"

Chris was right. Trude was nearing twenty and she could feel her magic power weakening. She looked at her hand and tightened it into a fist.

"I should be fine," Trude said with a smile. "Depletion of magic varies from witch to witch. I got a good year or two left in me. Besides, once I retire, I get to spend more time with you."

She patted her sister's on the head, who seemed happy to hear the news.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Trude reached into her coat pocket and presented a small box to Chris. "Sorry, I couldn't make it on your birthday so...happy late 13th birthday I guess."

Chris lifted the cover and pulled out a long chain and on the end of it was a metal oval. It was a silver locket. She opened it and on the left was a picture of Trude, happy and smiling, and on the right was a picture of their parents.

"This is like yours," Chris sniffed.

Trude pulled her locket that hung around her neck. It was square with the chain attached to one of the corners. Its design had another square midway to the center with two lines going diagonally from corner to corner and a pearl bead on the center where the lines crossed. Inside, Trude had the same picture of their parents, but instead of a picture of herself, she had a picture of Chris who was probably 5 or 6 when the photo was taken.

Chris began to tear up the longer she looked at her parents until she started to softly cry. Trude wrapped her arms around her to comfort her. She missed her parents, they both did, but Trude was able to somewhat cope easier by destroying any Neuroi she came across.

Without warning, bullets ripped through the glass. Chris screamed and Trude pulled them both onto the floor. The sound of an air raid siren was briefly cutoff when the familiar sound of a Neuroi death screech and roar of Strikers happened just outside the window.

"Look, I got to go. Stay here, stay down and do what the nurses tell you, okay?" Trude said quickly.

"Uh-huh," Chris whimpered, nodding her head.

Trude flipped the bed to give Chris something to hide behind when she heard a honk and a yell of a woman outside.

"Oi! Barkhorn! Get down here and gear up now!" It was none other than Charlotte Yeager.

"Alright!" Trude shouted back.

"Wait," Chris said. "Promise me you'll come back."

"I promise. I won't ever leave you again." With a final hug, Trude grabbed the bed sheet and wrapped it around the pipe of a rain gutter that was outside of the room window. She slid down and just as her feet touch downed, Shirley yanked off the tarp of the trailer attached to the truck, dramatically revealing two Striker launchers; one held Shirley's P-51Ds, and the other, Trude's Me-262 A1s. Without a moment to lose, both witches called upon their familiars and jumped into their strikers.

"Lucky," Shirley said with envy. "I wish I had a pair of jet Strikers."

"After this battle is over, I'll fill in a request to get you some," Trude said.

"Really?"

"Why not? They're in production, and we need all the help we can get."

Without another word, Trude loaded her duel MG 42s, grabbed a single Panzerfaust, and with her Strikers screaming, took off down the street and lifted into the air.

Before the magic engines could reach their full capacity, a Neuroi passed in front of Trude. With a quick burst, the Neuroi flew straight into the stream of bullets and disintegrated.

The battlefield over the city was filled with crisscrossing contrails and the roar of many, many, jet engines that it was almost deafening. Trude snapped onto a couple targets chasing a witch. With deadly proficiency, she took out three of them and the last two broke into a hard right. There was no way she could follow through with the turn so she stuck out her MG like a handgun and destroyed them. The witch saluted her thanks and Split-S'ed onto two targets that passed beneath them. Trude's shield automatically activated when a beam struck her side.

"I can use some help here."

Erica didn't respond, but Shirley gladly obliged with a requirement.

"Okay, come back towards me," Shirley said.

Trude confirmed and executed a steep chandelle and leveled out to head in Shirley's direction. The Liberion climbed as high as she could, twisted her body at the top of her climb,and came back down. Wind thundered past her as she gained speed dramatically. She was right on top of the Neuroi.

"Break!" Shirley shouted. Trude broke into a turn and as she did, Shirley squeezed the trigger on her BAR and shattered the alien. She zoomed climbed, turning her speed into altitude.

"Nicely done. I'm glad we're on the same side," Trude complimented through the intercom.

"We do make a pretty good team," Shirley acknowledged.

Recently, Trude has been warming up to the buxom red-headed Liberion. As small as the 501st was, they had no choice but to work together and Shirley had a change of attitude ever since the push into Karlsland. In Shirley's mind, it was act serious now and end the war as quickly as possible then spend time being lax.

As Trude reached the clouds, which were no more than a couple thousand meters high, a witch broke through the gray ceiling and dove at a blinding speed that even made Shirley impressed. At first glance, it seemed that the witch didn't have Strikers, but upon closer inspection, the Striker was on her back! It had a single small engine with short stubby wings and a small vertical stabilizer. That wasn't all that seemed weird about the newcomer. She was decked out in a dark brown flight suit that covered her entire body, including her legs, and wore a pair of black boots. She also had a black oxygen mask covering the lower half of her face.

The witch dove on a formation of Neuroi bombers. She fired her MK 108 30mm cannon as she punched through the formation, taking down one bomber. None of the Neuroi defenses activated because she was moving so fast. She zoom climbed, circled above the bombers once, and dove down again. She fired and severed the wing off one of the bombers causing it to collide into the bomber next to it, creating a spectacular explosion. Halfway to the clouds, the engine flamed out and quit. She yanked on a cord and the pair of stubby wings folded out to create long wings of a glider. Another witch flying an He-162 flew up next to the gliding witch to assist her back to base.

The witch removed her oxygen mask. Sweat dripped down her face and she was completely exhausted.

"Eight minutes of effective combat time," She said, breathing heavily. "What complete bullshit."

"That's the price to pay when you fly the Komet," commented the 162 pilot. "Look on the bright side. You managed three kills in two runs."

The Komet witch just hung her head in exhaustion.

The sky became darker as the clouds thickened. A bolt of lightning speared through the center of the 506th's formation, who just arrived, causing them to scatter.

"Watch it everyone!" Heinrike Wittgenstein shouted. "Try not to get hit by lightning!"

Just as she said that, Perrine was struck by a bolt but it didn't do anything detrimental. In fact it helped her. Electricity aggressively crackled all around the Gallian's body as she charged up a ball of lightning in her hand.

"Tonnerre!" Perrine released lightning from her hand. The attack was so powerful that it sliced through two large-types and wiped out any smaller drones around them.

Shortly after her attack, a horizontal tornado howled right in front of her destroying some small-types and disorienting others.

I know that attack! Perrine looked to her right and saw the Black Devil herself; Erica Hartmann. The Karlslandian screamed in gunning down the disoriented Neuroi with her MG 151/20. Perrine was astounded at Erica's speed as she zoomed above the rooftops. Man! And I thought my Tempest II was fast!

Erica in fact was not using her usual Bf-109 G6. Her new Strikers had the appearance of an elongated FW-190, even longer than the Dora, and has a pair of vertical stabilizers and elevators near the contra rotating propellers. It was a Dornier Do-335.

Trude was having difficulty dodging lightning as well as enemy fire and it didn't help that she was in the cloud. Luckily some of the Neuroi were struck by lightning, lessening the witch's problems.

"Let's hit the deck before we-" Shirley was cut off by the crack of thunder.

"Shirley?" Trude called out. Suddenly, something heavy crashed down on top of her. It was Shirley's unconscious body.

"Shirley!" Trude reached out to grab her wingman's hand but she too was shocked. The Karlslandian strained as she tried to keep her eyes open and on Shirley. It was not to be though. Another jagged bolt of light struck her. A deafening ring sounded off inside her ears and her eyes saw nothing but a bright white light. She felt numb as though she was floating through empty space until she began to regain some of her senses. Wind whistled, her clothes flapped in the wind, and air rushed past her. Trude opened her eyes. She was in a free fall! Frantically, she restarted her engines and went into a hover before the ground got any closer.

Not far off, a flight of four swept wing jets circled the area above the lone witch.

"What do you make of that?" the Element Lead asked.

"A flying girl appearing in the middle of nowhere after a lightning storm? Is the government keeping secrets again?" the Flight Wingman commented.

"It does seem to be a witch and this close to the East, *scoff* must be the Soviets," said the Element Wingman.

"Or it could be Liberion. God knows what they're up to," said the Element Lead. "Flight Lead, your orders?"

The Flight Lead, a young woman, remained quiet and placed a hand on her chest over a small bump in her flight suit.

"We follow her, but keep your distance."

Trude, bewildered, silently hovered as she looked at her surroundings. A city was beneath her but it wasn't the one she was in a few seconds ago. The city was in ruins. Destroyed tanks, destroyed sandbag bunkers and machinegun nests, as well as parts of planes littered the city, some of which were still burning. It was deadly silent. Nothing moved; no people or birds, not even a mouse. It was truly a gray winter apocalyptic display. The lone witch slowly flew around until she caught sight of what seemed to be a makeshift airfield at the edge of the metropolis.

A four lane highway that led out of the city acted as the runway while any surrounding buildings acted as Air Traffic Control, a command center, armory...anything an active airbase would need.

Trude dismounted and slowly walked towards what might be the command building, slinging one of her MG 42s onto her back and kept the other at the ready. Along the way there was some machinery that seemed familiar to her, mainly the Me-262s in their many different variants. They were far from flawless. Gaping holes the size of a football leaving cavities in the planes' structures along with small craters in the ground indicated that they were strafed while parked on the ground. There was one jet that was partially intact that Trude didn't recognize. It had the familiar swept wing design, but the elevator was high up on the tail and it didn't seem to have a nose; just a single large intake.

Hoping to find a little bit of warmth, Trude stopped sightseeing and entered the building only to find it to be just as cold as outside. The fact that the glass was shattered and snow blew through the windows didn't help. She found the war room, and just like the rest of the place, it was trashed. There was nothing that could be of much use. A couple maps and map markers was pretty much it. Trude was about to leave when she spotted a newspaper. Her blood froze when she saw the date.

1952?! How can the year be 1952?! Trude wailed in her thoughts. She read the headline and in big bold letters, it read: EASTERN KARLSLAND HAS FALLEN TO THE SOVIETS! Unable to look away, she continued reading and found out that Orussia now had a dictator and with Berlin in the hands of the Soviets, Karlsland was politically in shambles and Liberion hasn't decided what to do if they're to do anything.

The normally strong willed witch broke into tears and continued to cry for her beloved country.

"I-I-Is that you?" a weak voice asked.

Trude dropped the paper and whipped around to aim her weapon. A figure stood in the shadow of the doorway, hiding its identity but clearly held a handgun. Trude poised her finger over the trigger, her grief fueling her anger.

"Who the hell are you?!" she demanded.

The figure stepped forward slowly, evidently showing strain with each step until it stopped in the light. It was a woman. She was thin and gaunt, her clothes hanging onto her skeleton. Her brown hair was matted and her blue eyes were glazed but once she saw Trude's face, she smiled weakly, undoubtedly with happiness.

"It really is you."

"Johanna Wiese?!" Trude said in shock. The bony witch smiled and fell onto the floor with a thud.

"Johanna!" Trude ran up and cradled Johanna's fragile body in her arms.

"It's so good to see you." Johanna put her hand up to Trude's cheek and lightly chuckled. "After all these years, you haven't aged a day."

She couldn't go on talking as she shrunk and shivered. Trude quickly took her coat off and put it over Johanna. She seemed grateful and snuggled closer to Trude.

"Johanna, do you know what happened here?"

Johanna was about to speak when she heard something outside. Hoarsely and urgently, she spoke to Trude.

"Go! Get out of here now!" she strained.

"What-? Why?"

"Doesn't matter! Just leave me and get as far away from here as you can!"

"I can't just leave you here!" Trude protested. Johanna yanked on her collar.

"Go! One of us has to make it out alive!"

By the time Trude processed what she was told, it was already too late. A group of men armed with odd looking rifles burst through the door. One of them snatched Trude which caused Johanna to fall to the floor. Johanna feigned unconsciousness even though she wasn't far from passing out. A Sergeant walked through the door. Much to Trude's surprise, he had the Karlsland military insignia along with a gold hammer and sickle pin on his collar. If she remembered what Sanya said correctly, that was the symbol of the Communist party in Orussia. He looked down at Johanna, then to Trude who was still struggling in a Corporal's tight grip. Much to the witch's surprise, he spoke in fluent Karlslandic.

"Quite a catch if I do say so myself," said the Sergeant.

"I'll say. This one's armed to the teeth, sir," said the Corporal, indicating Trude.

He walked up to Trude and inspected her...physically.

"Young and nice. That is sure to fetch a nice price."

Trude blushed as he fondled with her breasts.

"But of course, she would be nicer if she is still innocent down here." He touched her privates. Trude sparked and kicked him. She tried to throw a punch only to have the grip on her arm squeeze tighter.

"Dirty bastard!" she yelled.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho! Feisty! I love that in a woman." He was about to do something to her face when he stopped and looked down.

Johanna was slowly crawling to the handgun that she had dropped. However, before she could reach it, the Sergeant's boot slowly crushed her hand into the floor. Johanna screamed in pain and shrunk into the fetal position to nurse her hand. He grabbed Johanna by the hair and lifted her up to eye level. The witch tried to free herself with her one good hand.

"That's not the type of feisty I like," he commented.

"Fuck you, you goddamn motherfucker!" Johanna said through gritted teeth. "Gah!" She recoiled when she received a fist to the stomach.

"I'll give you two options," she continued. "You can either kill yourself the way you want or let me decide how I want to kill you, which would probably be in a gruesome way."

Trude raised an eyebrow. She heard that quote somewhere before but she couldn't remember where. It did leave a sour taste in her mouth though. She shook her head to clear it. If she didn't remember, it probably wasn't important.

"You're in no position to tell me what to do." The Sergeant slammed Johanna's head against the edge of a table. "Not so tough without those fancy powers of yours, huh?"

Johanna didn't answer as the floor around her head slowly became red.

"Put both of them in the truck," he ordered. Two men dragged Johanna's body and the Corporal carried Trude out. No matter how much she resisted, she couldn't break free.

Not long after they exited the building, shouting came from one of the vehicles as two 37mm Flak 43s started opening up. Everyone dropped their attention on the two women and focused on the incoming threat. Four jets similar to the one Trude saw earlier circled the airspace when two of them broke off. The Flight Lead and its wingman strafed the convoy, cutting down anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way. They flashed past and Trude saw Karlsland Luftwaffe roundels on the fuselage. The Element Lead and its wingman made their run and raked bullets over the vehicles destroying most of the trucks and one of the Flak 43s. As the Element Wingman passed, it took a hit. Black smoke flowed out of the jet but it still flew. Having to make a decision quickly, Trude decided to help out the aircraft the only way she could. She unslung her single Panzerfaust and primed it. She took aim at the single Flak truck and destroyed it with the single shot. The jets came back around to strafe any infantry and Trude took the opportunity to get to her Strikers. After starting up her Strikers, she quickly picked Johanna up in her arms and left the carnage behind her.

The Me 262s whined as they started to die. Trude used every scrap of energy she had to stay airborne. She was running completely on fumes and was completely defenseless. No food for a quick boost. No magic reserves. No way of using her last MG 42. No nothing. She was about to land somewhere in the snowy wilderness when she heard the sound of jet engines. One of the jets from earlier pulled up to her left, another to her right, one above and behind her, and one below her. She looked to the left and saw that the pilot was pointing at the plane next to her so Trude looked to her right. The jet pilot gave her a long look, her oxygen mask and helmet hiding any emotions. The pilot pointed at Trude, then back at herself, then out in front of her. She did so several more times until Trude figured it out.

"You follow me," Trude said to herself, interpreting the hand signals. She nodded. The pilot banked right and Trude followed along with the rest of the flight.

Trude landed in front of the hangar on an airfield. Many eyed her curiously as statements were made.

"Who is she?"

"A witch? An actual witch?"

"Wait...Is that Johanna?"

"Someone get a medic! It's Johanna!"

Before the Trude could comprehend anything, she was surrounded by base personnel, soldiers, and pilots, men and women alike. They were all young faces and she couldn't recognize but she was glad that they at least know and cared for Johanna's well being. A stretcher finally came and she gently put her friend down and watched her get wheeled away. As Johanna went, so did most of the crowd.

The flight of four that had escorted Trude have landed and were taxiing towards the hangar. The Flight Lead along with the rest of her flight halted on the apron. She hopped out and was greeted by her mechanic.

"How did things go up there?" he asked. The pilot didn't respond and he asked again, voice filled with concern. "Hey. Is everything alright?"

"For the most part. Halder's CL-13 was hit and would need some repairs," she said distantly, staring at Trude.

"So that's a witch?" he asked. "I wonder if she also knew your sister."

"Sister..." the pilot whispered longingly.

Trude took off her 262 and was about to follow the crowd when the short haired brunette pilot walked up to her and slapped her across the face. Trude was taken aback by this gesture and was slapped on the other cheek.

"Where were you?!" the pilot demanded.

The witch was absolutely dumbfounded.

"All these years and you show up now!" The pilot broke into tears and pounded Trude's chest with her fists, each one getting progressively weaker.

"I'm sorry. But I don't know what you're talking about," Trude said, genuinely confused.

"You baka!" the pilot choked. "Baka! You left me there. You left me in that hospital and you didn't come back! You said you would! You promised me!"

Trude looked down at the pilot and saw a scuffed up silver locket that had escaped the pilot's flight suit. The latch was broken and with the repeated movement of the pilot's hits, it opened to reveal two very familiar photographs behind cracked glass.

"Chris?!" Trude said in astonishment.

Chris looked up, tears flowing from her eyes.

"You were going to retire," Chris said. "You were going to spend time with me. You promised you wouldn't ever leave me again." It became too much for her. Chris sobbed so heavily that she could no longer form words.

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm here now. I'm here now." Trude pulled Chris in closer in a tight embrace. Chris cried and wailed with grief, anger, and happiness as she wept into Trude's chest.

"I won't leave you...Sister."

A/N: This story has been sitting in my hard drive for a while. I was not really sure what to do with it. My goal at the time when I wrote this was to have a story with Chris and to have a non-siscon relationship between the Barkhorn sisters.

Given the premise of this story so far, I thought it was fitting to release it today, October 21, 2015. Why? Because today is the day Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrive to the future! I feel so nostalgic thinking about it. It is a weird feeling that Back to the Future is now in the past.

I have not really planned anything for this story after this point, but if there is enough interest, I will be happy to continue it.

Take care folks, and remember, the future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one.