This is something I wrote quite a while ago, but I feel like it's worth sharing. I felt as though Strike Witches had a lot of potential in ways the show decidedly did not explore. A world where, right on the brink of WWII, a much more terrifying force requires the international cooperation of countries that despise each other. Furthermore, they have to put their most valuable military assets - the witches - together in a multinational effort to survive. I feel like that could produce some real drama in a politically charged atmosphere.

Anyways that's where this would have gone. For now it ends after this. There may be a second chapter down the pipes. Enjoy!

The heavens burned.

It seemed an overtly poetic thing to say, a romantic declaration, a melodrama, but for Major Mio Sakamoto, Squadron Leader of the 501st, there was no truer a description than that. It was but 2000 hours and pitch black, the clouds ashen and the sky red. Truly, the heavens burned.

Mio flew through the air as she had become accustomed and found this particular flight not nearly what others had been. At any other time she felt exhilaration, perhaps anxiety, but surely pride and excitement as she soared about at speeds around 300 kilometers per hour, the clouds rushing past her, the rush of air whipping through her hair, and the ground tearing past…

Even when the enemy was in sight, the monstrous black aircraft of alien design, Mio felt adrenaline, a rush. It was good despite the danger. She knew her mission and she knew the risks but she enjoyed it regardless.

That night she did not.

The Neuroi were obscured amidst the blackness, clouds of soot hiding them, burning columns of crimson marking their advances, every energy beam blowing another friendly aircraft from the sky. The scream of AA guns from thousands of feet below, the reply of fighter-mounted machine guns were always in her ear, deafening booms of dying comrades filling her heart with horror and dread.

And below the town of Kappeln was aflame. The wooden structures of Karlsland's northernmost port town were caught in a merciless blaze, towers of smog and soot rising into the night sky. And though Mio could not see it from her altitude she knew that the people she had been brought in to protect were being slaughtered.

Anger and sorrow mixed in Mio's heart at that thought. This wasn't a war. The Neuroi hadn't come here to conquer. They came only to kill, to destroy.

"Miyafuji," Mio called over her intercom, nearly shouting over the maelstrom of sense that had become the sky around her. Mio was in a terrifying position, unable to see or hear any of the four girls from the 501st she'd brought with her. This had been meant to be easy flying…

"Sakamoto!" Yoshika Miyafuji replied. Mio looked back and could just barely make out Yoshika off her right flank and below her some 40 meters. "I can't see any of the others, or the Neuroi. What do we do?"

"Don't panic," Mio said in the most calming voice she could muster, feeling that same panic she was warning Yoshika not to let overtake her. "Just fall into formation on me, and we'll find the others. Roger?"

"Roger," Yoshika replied in a quite wary voice, doing as ordered. With that, Mio had one problem out of her head… only three or so more to go. Mio had brought Sergeant Yoshika and Sergeant Lynette out on this mission to give them their first experience of real combat on the frontline, but hadn't expected anything this bad.

She still had to worry about the whereabouts of Sergeant Lynette, along with Pilot Officer Francesca Lucchini and Flight Lieutenant Charlotte Yeager, all of whom had detached early on or been separated in the soot. And then after finding all of her pilots, Mio still had to shoot an unknown number of Neuroi craft out of the sky.

Almost as though on cue, Yoshika cried out in warning, Mio instinctively evaded to port as a massive black shape gridlocked with glowing lines of light crashed through the smog before them. The gargantuan Neuroi warship bore down on the two – Yoshika following right on her Squad Leader's flank – its girth threatening to smash them from the sky.

Mio felt the current of air breaking around the vessel as it whipped past them, just barely missing her by meters.

"Watch your back!" Mio warned to Yoshika, knowing what would follow. To no great surprise – and certainly not relief, either – a cascade of red light shot like a geyser from the front of the Neuroi, now just past them. Mio came about to face the energy beams as they detached into innumerable, separate strands and snaked around in the air, vectoring to meet the two Strike Witches of the 501st.

Mio had no fear for this though, as she had come to trust in her wingman of late. Yoshika – her brow gleaming with sweat, showing in the brilliant red light – brought up her hands and before her the air crackled with iridescent energy. Though there was little comfort to be found as the air all around them seemed to fill with deadly Neuroi energy, Mio knew they were both safe, every one of the beams soaked up into the Sergeant's invisible shield.

The two flitted on through the barrage unharmed, and Mio knew then would be their chance to strike, as the Neuroi brought its attentions back down on them, refocusing. "Miyafuji, suppressing fire," she ordered, calmer now than before, the strategic mindset reasserting itself.

Yoshika nodded and brought her type 99 aircraft cannon up to bear, the long, automatic weapon unwieldy in the little girl's hands. Still she carried it with the ease supplied of her powers and pulled the trigger, the snout erupting with fire in the dark, 20mm rounds whistling through the air at the black behemoth.

Mio turned off hard to starboard, flying down low under Yoshika's hail of automatic weapons fire. The Major reached up, pulling the patch from her left eye, and took a moment to scan the Neuroi. Within moments she came to see the core, hidden away near the top of the enemy ship.

The Neuroi took into a nearly lumbering turn to starboard, coming about to face the most obvious source of its ailments. As it did, it exposed its large topside to the hail of 20mm shells, which were absorbed ineffectually into its black hull. Again the red streaks of light arced out at Yoshika. In that moment, Mio made her move.

A loud battle cry called from the black-mained girl as she ascended up at full speed, the meter long katana in her hands glowing, surging with energy. Up it came, the sharpened edge running along the nigh-impenetrable armor of the craft. In less than a second she had cleared the high edge of the banking Neuroi and shot past it.

It was in good time that she did, as the black mass split down the middle and then blew outwards, white light filling the darkness as the core was destroyed. The roar of the Neuroi's death was deafening and the air blast threatened to throw both of the pilots out of control.

Still, as the fiery debris cleared from view, Yoshika found herself intact, her shield having taken the full force of both the Neuroi's lasers and shrapnel. She glanced up to see the form of the Major as she looped back down to join her.

"Good work," Mio praised curtly, retaking her place just in front of Yoshika. Yoshika felt a momentary swelling of pride, and smiled, despite the darkness and frantic state of the battle. "Now let's find the other girls, shall we?"

"Coming up on your port side, Mio!" came a call over the com, answering one of the foremost questions in the two girl's heads. Mio quickly pulled out of the way as, right on time, Charlotte Yeager zipped past, two Luftwaffe Bf-109 fighters escorting her. Yoshika had to roll far to the side to avoid a collision with the leftmost fighter, its girth much greater than any of the other Witches around which Yoshika had become accustomed to flying.

The two were given only the slightest glimpse of Shirley, her modified engines carrying her further, faster than either of the two fighters, who began to fall behind as they were consumed by the black clouds.

"Shirley, report!" Mio called back, responded to with bursts of static. Mio cursed the situation internally. Was this jamming effect something of the Neuroi's doing? And beyond the difficulty in communication, the conditions were horrifying; sight was limited to nearly a few hundred meters in any direction.

"We've… three, aside from… Helluva night… huh?" was all that could be heard from the Liberion pilot, her voice excited under adrenaline, as though this mission were no different from another. Mio smiled, somehow comforted by the younger girl's demeanor. Even in the face of these terrifying flying conditions, Shirley was enjoying herself.

"Should we go after her?" Yoshika asked, flying again at Mio's side. "She could probably use our help." Mio's smile broadened, though in the darkness Yoshika would never have been able to tell.

"No," she said, "I'm sure she can handle herself."

It was nearly immediately after that that Mio came to regret what she had said.

It had been that the three combatants – the two Karlslandic Luftwaffe and their Liberion counterpart – were hard on the tail of another Neuroi, a small craft that had passed just over the heads of Yoshika and Mio. They passed through the blackness at dizzying speeds, and cleared into the night sky overhead, the sky at the higher altitude clearer, lit by the light of the waning moon and punctuated every so often by the explosions of artillery on the ground.

It had also been that the small, speedy Neuroi to which the three were drawn, was bait. Shirley recognized this and cursed herself for her thoughtlessness.

She had meant to take a moment to call warning for evasion to her two wingmen, but not even that was granted to her. The moment they cleared past the cloud line, a hurricane of red light was upon them. Had Shirley but a few seconds more, she would have noted that the three larger Neuroi ships to which the smaller fled had formed almost a broadside formation on them. It had been rather clever.

But Shirley simply grunted as she threw up all of the energy in her body into a shield, absorbing and dispersing the energy that she knew would kill her before she even realized it. Until the very last moments, as time began to slow in her adrenaline fueled state, Shirley was sure there was simply too much to stop.

As it were, though, Shirley's shield held before her, and she sped through the red light, unaware that the two Karslandic fighter / interceptors behind her had been stricken numerous times, and were moments from death.

First it came to her in an instinctual ache in the back of her mind, and then in the rush of hot air that collided with her back like so many thousands of pounds of pressure. Of course, there was very little distinction between the stages of the explosion, but it made all the difference, as Shirley knew what had just happened, and brought the energy in the air to cocoon around her, not even able to think that perhaps she was moments from death herself.

Everything sped up, everything blurred. Shirley was sure Merlin had stopped working for some reason, and she had been blown hard off course, and she was spiraling, and she was in free fall, and why was it so bright all of a sudden? Her whole body was throbbing in numbness, and she was deafened.

She knew, or figured at least, that she had to get back up, get flying again…

But, as Shirley fell back from whence she'd come up through the clouds, unconsciousness took her. In her last moments of memory, the rush of air comforted her. For some very odd reason she couldn't quite pin down, she felt at ease.

"Shirley!" Yoshika cried. Mio ignored her wingman, instead focusing intently on the shape that had just whipped past them in the dark. Surely, Mio knew, it had been Lieutenant Yeager. She fell through the screen of soot, the explosive death of the two Bf-109's framing her violent and uncontrollable descent.

Mio had no idea what had happened, but she knew that Shirley was not alright.

Without a word, Mio looped back down from her ascent and angled into the thickets of darkness beneath her. She cared not, for the moment, whether Yoshika followed suit, only concerned with the safety of her fallen subordinate.

Blindness stole at Mio as she took into the clouds, her every sense done away with by the very circumstance. She was choking then on ash, her ears filled with the ringing of the most recent explosions, her very sense of direction only influenced by the pull of gravity, telling her she was hurtling down towards oblivion.

And when she cleared the cloud cover, things were no better.

Kappeln was laid out under her like a play mat, the whole of it afire, the city lights drowned out by the intensity of the infernos. Though clearer then, the sky was filled with tufts of flame and shrapnel as one after another of the Karlslandic fighter squads were decimated by the Neuroi that sailed quite ponderously, large black behemoths dominating the sky at various altitudes below her, no two the same.

Mio knew that Kappeln was lost. And with an invading armada of such size, how could there be any hope for the rest of Karlsland, or Europe beyond?

The doubt stole at Mio's strained confidences, but she banished it from her mind. A great distance below her, she could barely make out the flailing, twisting form of Charlotte Yeager as she fell, approaching terminal velocity. The glint of metal that was Merlin was present, but by then Shirley was obviously not flying.

Mio tensed her whole body up, making herself a projectile, forcing herself faster and faster onwards. She would not allow herself to lose Shirley.

From such a distance, Mio could not speak of Shirley's state, but she could tell one thing. Lieutenant Yeager was making no attempt to slow her descent, so most likely she had been knocked unconscious. Mio just hoped that was the worst of it.

Mio willed herself on with all her might, biting her lip, her brow furrowed, but a shocking realization came to her: she was not going to be able to catch Shirley. Shirley was just… too far away. Mio knew, in seconds, not only would Shirley be done for, but Mio herself wouldn't have time to pull up.

"No," she grunted, "no, I will not let you go!"

But then, Mio knew there was nothing she could do. Shirley was so close, but just too far. Her body fell below her, and the city below rushed up to meet them. Mio wouldn't make it.

Just as the fires of Kappeln and the buildings rose around them, telling Mio it was too late, the air around her lit up with brilliant white light, and suddenly Mio's valiant charge downwards was halted. In panic, Mio turned her gaze downwards, steeling herself to see the first causality of the 501st.

But, to her great surprise and deadened shock, Shirley had slowed to a gentle glide, and then came to rest on the darkened ground. Mio looked back up to see Yoshika Miyafuji, hovering some distance above her, both hands outstretched, energy crackling about her fingers. She was panting heavily, exhausted, but there was a look of great relief in her eyes.

Mio nodded at her in thanks, and quickly landed in the street by Shirley's side. Quickly, Mio undid the series of latches connecting her legs to the Striker Unit she wore, and she ran to Shirley.

It was then that all relief washed away.

The city of Kappeln had once been beautiful. It was, like many cities of Karlsland, a perfect example of deep tradition and heritage. The buildings had a distinct, cozy architecture; to this Karlslanders took much pride. One would be hard-pressed to say, at first glance, that Kappeln was a port town and not a tourist escape.

Of course, these details were of no consequence to Mio Sakamoto as she kicked open the door to the nearest building, the bloodied body of one of her oldest companions in her arms. She paid no heed to what was around her in the little restaurant, turning instead to the first table of adequate size that caught her eye. Though she fully understood that moving Shirley could worsen her state, there was no telling what manner of fiery doom would be visited upon them in the open under a battle with the Neuroi.

Mio laid Shirley on her back upon the table, taking a shocked moment to reevaluate the damage. The girl was dressed in the green uniform of Liberion's Army Air Corps, but the whole midsection was torn and ruined, blood seeping from scores of ugly puncture wounds in the girl's body. Mio knew right then that the first order of business would be stopping the bleeding if Shirley was going to survive even a few more minutes.

Quickly Mio went to work despite her complete lack of resources. She quickly removed her flying jacket, and began to tear strips from it. "Miyafuji!" she called without turning to face her subordinate. "I need you to take these and apply pressure to the wounds, alright?"

There was no response from the young girl. "Miyafuji!?" Mio repeated harshly, her voice edging into franticness. Mio whipped around to see Yoshika, standing by the door of the darkened room with wide, scared eyes, frozen where she stood. Seeing this, Mio looked down again at the still form of Shirley Yeager, really seeing what she had at first only evaluated.

There was blood absolutely everywhere. More blood than Mio thought a person could have, soaking the once prim and perfect uniform, getting all over Mio's hands and white shirt. Mio swallowed hard, looking down at her hands, realizing the stakes.

That was… Shirley's blood on her hands…

"Miyafuji… Yoshika," Mio started again, quieter. "I need your help, so please."

Yoshika nodded shakily and stumbled to her side. "Take these and apply pressure to the wounds," Mio ordered again. Yoshika did as told, using the thick strips of clothe as impromptu gauze. Her lip began to quiver at the sight of the mess made of a girl that'd been so lively, so kind to everyone around her. And it was a mess, the blood, warm and thick, smearing into everything.

A low groan rose from Shirley's lips, her hands began to clench into fists, and at first Mio felt great relief at knowing her friend was regaining consciousness. Almost immediately though, she went to hold the girl down, as Shirley let out a cry of agony, kicking her legs out and thrashing against whatever was causing her pain.

Yoshika was knocked back, and Shirley tensed up into a tight ball, clutching her hands against the gushing gut wounds. "Oh… Oh God…!" Shirley moaned, opening her eyes to see what had become of her.

"Shirley," Mio said, holding her back down, "please, let us help you!"

"Wh- what happened!?" Shirley cried, eyes wild, face contorted in agony. Her voice spoke of senselessness, a reaction to mind-numbing pain that tore through her body. She tried hard to say more, but the rest was incoherent, tortured screams of anguish erupting from her mouth as she clutched at her wounds.

Yoshika sat back in horror, hugging her knees to her chest and hiding her face behind her hands. The sight and sound was too much… This couldn't be happening. For what seemed like an eternity – but was really only about ninety seconds – Yoshika replayed her first flight through her head again and again, just to have something besides the most horrible screaming.

But the screams quickly died down to weak wails, and then no more than hissing gasps of air as Shirley got a hold of herself.

"I'm… Gh… I'm all shot up," Shirley declared, stammering in pain, her face still contorted. Mio neared her again and noted, to some confusion, that Shirley seemed to be trying to smile. But then, that was Shirley. No matter what adversity, she made light of it.

"Shirley," Mio began, "you have multiple shrapnel wounds…" The girl stopped, not even sure what she meant to say. "And you've lost a lot of blood…"

"You should… See the other guy," Shirley managed to say with a grin, her teeth specked with blood.

"But you're going to be alright, so," Mio paused, looking all around for supplies. She knew that treating such a wound was something she was trained for – but she also knew that there wasn't a chance in Hell without the right supplies. And the restaurant around was barren, completely empty. There was a terrible sinking feeling at seeing that. There was certainly no hope by conventional means.

But then, conventional means were not the only means. Mio turned away from the wounded girl and went to Yoshika's side, who still sat off a ways. "That's alright, take your time," Shirley called after her, an edge of humor on her voice, singed with agony.

Mio knelt before the younger girl, and took a quick moment to calm herself. After taking a deep, steadying breath, she gently laid a hand on the girls shoulder. Yoshika nearly jumped out of her skin, startled from her trance-like state. There was blood smudged on her forehead, and her eyes were wide and unresponsively terrified.

It was a sorry state to see her in, and Mio regretted ever considering this mission. But still, Yoshika had a job to do.

"Sergeant, we're in a difficult spot here," Mio began, voice low and even. "Do you understand?" Yoshika nodded warily, and for that Mio was glad. "So I need your help again if we're going to make it through this, alright?"

At that Yoshika frowned, realization dawning on her face. She shook her head, the look in her eyes that of hopelessness. "I – I can't, Sakamoto, I've never done anything like this," she stammered in response. "There's no way."

"I don't believe that," Mio said, understanding Yoshika's position. This was too much to throw on anyone's shoulders at one time, the responsibility for another person's life. It was especially much for a mere trainee who had only ever used the suggested and required skill on a very minor level. But Mio saw something in Yoshika that needed to come to the fore right then.

"Miyafuji," Mio began again, "you have a lot of power, and a lot of talent." Again, Yoshika shook her head, but Mio put her hands on her face and looked her straight in the eyes. "There's truly no limit to what you can accomplish, if only you'd try, believe that you can do it."

"That's not…" Yoshika began to interject.

"Please, I need you to trust me right now, trust yourself." Mio's voice fell to a low whisper, so she could be sure Yoshika was listening very carefully. "You are Shirley's only hope, and I know you can save her. Trust me, Yoshika."

Yoshika sat quiet for a moment, that look of resigned defeat on her face. But then, with finality, she steeled herself internally for what she needed to do, and the look was reflected in her eyes. She nodded once to signify her acceptance. Mio smiled and nodded back in a way that said, 'yeah it's tough, but we'll make it through this.'

The two stood and went to Shirley's side, who still writhed and cringed in pain, but managed to smile up at Yoshika. "Hey, Sergeant Miyafuji. Having a fun night? I know I am," she laughed.

Yoshika took one last wary look back at Mio, and then down again at Shirley, her hands raised.

As once again the electric charge of energy filled the air, Yoshika felt the most surety she had ever felt. There was no way things could go wrong.