Hello, readers!
As you may have noticed from the title, I've made some improvements to this fic. Hindsight is very powerful, and with it at my disposal I know I can do better.
The biggest change, is the backstory. I felt this was severely lacking in the original. A significant portion is now dedicated to the backstory.
The story is now told in third person. Not sure why I did this, but I wrote the backstory in third person and figured I might as well keep going in third person to spice things up.
Speaking of spicing things up, many minor events are changed. This made it more enjoyable to write as I was not simply cloning what I already wrote, and it should make it more enjoyable to read for those who read the original. Nothing major will change.
This fic is now titled "Atlas Uprising", in continuing the theme of change.
I'd also like to thank LenCrossTop20 for the support and motivation, and Damien Evans for the very valid critique. Thanks, guys!
IMPORTANT - This story is a slight crossover with Len's own crossover fic (lol). My intent is to make this perfectly readable on it's own, but I HIGHLY recommend reading both as there will be some characters which appear in both.
So, without further ado, I present...
Strike Witches - Atlas Uprising
A barren wasteland, devoid of any life whatsoever. This was Earth, as of the year 2025. The Neuroi came back in force that year, and during a fairly rapid and decisive struggle they defeated the last remnants of Earth's militaries. It was unlike what most would think of when they think of a wasteland; instead of desert sands and dry air, the terrain was simply covered by the Neuroi's hexagonal scales. And in the sky, endless storms poured acidic rain on the ground, which dissolved some of the 'land'. Being made of Neuroi scales, it was self-regenerating, and the process continued indefinitely. Acid rain would dissolve the ground, and it would repair itself, and the process repeated itself across every square inch of the Earth's surface.
Mankind didn't die, however. Rather, they took to the stars, in search of a new home. They found one, dubbed 'Atlas', and after much debate, it was decided that this is where Earth's interstellar fleet of a hundred thousand ships would settle. This, of course, only happened after spending about a year in orbit, as automated terraforming craft undertook the painstaking task of shaping the continents and oceans exactly as they had been on Earth. This eliminated the need for nations to debate who got what territory, and it had the added bonus of feeling more like home.
Nine years after the evacuation, NATO opted to send ships back to Earth, and see just what sort of damage the Neuroi did to the place. The United States of Liberion was the first nation to do so, developing the brand new Mirage interceptor for the task. Long-range scans had given them some idea of the harsh conditions the craft would face, so they installed a state-of-the-art stabilization system in the machine to handle the storms, as well as an advanced ion shield. Almost the whole interior of the delta-winged spaceplane would house an enormous reactor which would power two huge FT-127 engines contained in nacelles mounted in the wing roots. With each generating three million pounds of thrust, the five-hundred foot long ship could reach up to Mach 7 in level flight, and Mach 10 in a dive. Of course, the real reason for installing such massive engines was to enable the ship to commute between the planets in just one jump, rather than performing a series of jumps like an AI-ship would.
Liberion did something unexpected with the few Mirages they built. They gave them to the Witch Corps. This was not unheard of; Karlsland later did the same with its long-range interceptor. But most countries were wary of entrusting big responsibilities to witches, as witches were viewed by many as the reason the Neuroi took over Earth. Witches young and old took great offense to this, particularly survivors of the battles in the skies above Earth, due to the fact that many witches lost their lives to the invasion. This only served to strengthen the resolve of the survivors, who were determined to deflect the blame away from their fallen comrades. Armed with an arsenal of numbers and facts, they waged war with the worst opponents of Air Force witches, and they won. Faced with an argument they couldn't hope to counter, the Karlsland brass decided to give them another chance, and Liberion quickly followed.
This was just the chance witches worldwide had desired. Now armed with the new breed of interceptor designs, they took to the skies over Earth, and in a record setting mission, sixty Mirages crewed by 120 Liberion witches kept the skies over Africa completely clear of Neuroi for a full twenty-four hours, downing 124 Neuroi in the process. It was the first real use of the Mirages in combat, and it was a resounding success.
Operation Nemesis, as it was called, was the beginning of the rise to fame for two pilots in particular. Sam and Mia Brooks, crew of the Mirage with the tail number D-1504, shot down one Scout-type, two Fighter-type, and one Laser Barge. They were... quite the pair of anomalies, to say the least. Sam, because he was, well, not a "she". He was a "wizard", a term very few people recognized. People called him a witch anyway, sometimes because they didn't know better, or because they simply forgot. He didn't care.
Both could boast of being a 'Hybrid', a term used to refer to someone who possessed traits of a Neuroi, in their case, it took the form of a Core Fragment hidden in each of their hands. This was unusual, as there were no known Hybrids since the Second Neuroi War, where a few 'Hybridifications' of regular witches took place. Even more unusual, was the fact that neither had any recollection of actually becoming a Hybrid. This confused many, Sam and Mia included, as it was literally impossible to be born a Hybrid.
Mia was highly energetic and enthusiastic. She was a 5'6", emerald-eyed blonde, and an excellent blunt instrument. In combat, she could deploy an enormously strong shield, which she often used for bashing purposes in the absence of a gun. Extremely skilled with her inherent magic granted by her familiar which was a white tiger, she had two abilities at her disposal - Reflector Shield and Unleash. Reflector Shield would deploy a special shield which would reflect projectiles back at attackers, and Unleash was a form of strength augmentation that also boosted senses and reflexes. In her Hybrid form, Mia remained mostly the same, merely being covered in hollow red hexes, and gaining slow regeneration of wounds.
Sam had a much different fighting style, and it complimented hers nicely. Slightly shorter than his sister, he stood 5'3" tall, with brown hair and sky blue eyes. His inherent magic was very weak, due to his complete lack of a familiar, and he only had one magic ability - Enhanced Perception. Enhanced Perception worked like Foresight, with the limitation that the user had to actually be looking at what they wanted to predict, and because of this it was not very useful when Sam was surrounded. He also had a weak shield, which is why he preferred to stay farther away from the combat. On the other hand, his Hybrid form was extremely powerful and had two stages. Stage One would give him rapid wound regeneration, and allow him to access two abilities - Energy Absorption and Active Cloaking. Cloaking was simple, the user would simply become invisible, but Energy Absorption was a bit more complex. With it active, Sam would absorb energy of all types, and store it. Later he could release said energy in any form. Stage Two was more extreme and required both Core Fragments to be active, and it would cover him in constantly-regenerating armor which could shrug off many forms of attack. Sam's fighting style dictated that he stay away from the action, so Stage Two was rarely required, but in a pinch he could use it to protect himself that much better.
Somehow, before Operation Nemesis, the two Hybrid witches remained under the radar of the media. Perhaps the media was too focused on doing what only they do best - reporting on complete trash that for some reason captured people's attention. For whatever reason, the public seemed to care more about what celebrities ate for breakfast than the ongoing conflict. But when someone took notice that two Hybrid witches scored such a high number of kills during Operation Nemesis, it was simply too good to pass up.
Suddenly, the sixteen year old twins had interviews scheduled with just about every major news network. They were asked silly questions, like "What's it like to be partly Neuroi?". They gave honest, but disappointing answers, along the lines of "It's really no different, except that I can do this.", followed by a demonstration. The media had a field day with them, and so did the Liberion brass and supporters of the Witch Corps, who heavily hyped their achievements.
Unfortunately for Sam's career, in March 2035, Mirage D-1504 experienced an engine fire on takeoff. In the subsequent emergency landing, which was rather messy, he suffered severe damage to his right arm. This, however, gave doctors an idea - and they decided to install one of his Core Fragments into an artificial, electronic arm, which would replace his real one.
It was a success, and when the Fragment was activated, his new arm became covered in Neuroi scales. He said to the engineers looking on, "Any chance I could get another one of these?", and by June they'd delivered. Despite having recovered, it was the end of the career he knew in the Air Force. After another month, he was unexpectedly barred from flying any combat missions.
They got him an apartment in a complex that housed many retired witches, and sent him off to the nearby Shorewood High School, which also served a fair share of retired witches. He asked Mia, who was still flying, to investigate his seemingly random removal from combat flights. She agreed, and they parted ways.
What nobody knew, was the massive scale of the conspiracy about to be uncovered. Set in motion, was a plan to severely hamper mankind's efforts to defend itself from the invaders, and it started from the very top.
Sam hated school. This, of course, wasn't going to convince the military that he should stay. He was also among the world's finest pilots of interstellar craft. This, he reasoned, should certainly be enough to satisfy them, and yet it wasn't.
Maybe it's the cybernetics. He pondered their motives over a plate of toaster waffles on his first morning attending Shorewood. Do they think the cybernetics hold me back?
No... there's more. He eventually convinced himself. Has to be. There was, and still is, a witch with a cybernetic leg. Nobody had a problem with that!
No matter how hard Sam thought about it, he came up empty on ideas.
He hopped on the bus when it came, deciding to drop the topic for the time being. He'd have plenty of time to wonder about it later.
Every eyeball on the bus trained itself on the door when he got on. Cybernetics were still uncommon at best, only with recent advances in bioengineering did they become able to fully sync with a user's brain, allowing them to be controlled purely by instinct.
To the other students on the bus, Sam was like a magnet, in more than one way. He drew all their eyes, and yet he seemed to repel them away at the same time. Nobody sat within two rows of him, but that wasn't a problem. In fact, he found it rather funny how they all avoided him like the plague, yet couldn't resist eyeing him curiously.
After the amusing bus ride, things changed. As Sam entered the cafeteria and pulled a folded schedule out of his pocket, a really big guy and his group of friends decided to pay him a visit.
"Yo, robot dude, the hell are you doin' here?"
The guy had a beard. As in, an actual beard. Even worse, he radiated a pungent odor of sweat and nachos.
Sam wasn't scared, though the guy was certainly appalling. He'd regularly faced the dangerous Artillery Beams of Neuroi Laser Barges, and been confronted by Surface-to-Air Missile sites. This was a trivial challenge.
"I could ask the same thing of you."
The guy was clearly annoyed by Sam's sarcastic response. "Man, I aint gonna play no stupid-ass games! This is our turf, you don't just come here like it's up for grabs!"
I bet someone with an IQ of fifty would make this guy look dumb.
"Um, sorry to burst your bubble, but the government owns it, not you."
"I said, I aint playin' no games, jackass! The hell's your problem?"
"You basically said you aren't not playing games. Therefore, you are playing games."
You're making it easy, fool...
The guy was visibly enraged now, to Sam's delight. "Frickin' little bitch!" He shouted, picking up a chair and attempting to hit Sam with it. Sam instinctively raised his arm to block it, and the impact hit the elbow joint, cracking the metal. His now-derelict forearm dangled at an extremely odd-looking angle.
"Aw, man, we broke robot dude!" One of the guy's cronies commented, triggering a volley of laughter from the three.
"What'cha gonna do now, huh?" The ringleader taunted, hoisting the chair again.
Sam put his working hand to his chin, pretending to think for a moment. He was going to scare the guy. "Hmm... well, I could tell you it's broken, and make you pay to get it fixed..." He paused, for dramatic effect. "...Or, I could just do this..." Powering up one Core Fragment, both arms formed a streamlined shell of Neuroi scales as the broken part fell off. Within seconds it had regenerated itself back to normal functionality.
If the aggressors' jaws could have hit the floor, they probably would have. And this was only Stage One of his Hybrid form.
Powering down the Fragment, Sam grabbed the broken piece off the floor and put it on a table a few feet away. "Here, have a souvenir." He said with a grin, and walked away.
Knowing how rumors circulate, by the time I get to class, nobody will even want to look at me wrong...
Contrary to what he was thinking, when he finally found his first class, he immediately became an object of attention. Conversations stopped, and heads turned towards the door. Sam just shrugged and took the closest seat. A duo of boys a few rows over shared a few speculative whispers about him.
"Hey, you see this guy?"
"What about him?"
"Look at him!"
"Wha... OH, damn!"
"Man, that is insane!"
"Heheh... I dare you to go talk to him!"
"Aw, no way!"
"Why not? Scared?"
"What?! No!"
"Then go talk to him!"
"Well... I... saw something earlier..."
"The heck are you goin' on about?"
"He was getting bugged by Jason and his idiot friends, and they broke one of his robotic arms. You should've seen what he did!"
"What'd he do?"
"I don't even know... there was like, this weird shell that formed over them, looked exactly like a Neuroi, and it regenerated!"
"..."
"I'm telling you!"
"...Are you high?"
"I swear, that's what I saw!"
"Three bucks says you're full of it."
"Alright, alright, whatever you say... but you have to talk to him."
"Fine then, if you're scared..."
As his friend literally face-palmed, one boy walked over to where Sam sat. By this time normal conversations had resumed after everyone had gotten an eyeful of the new arrival.
"So, my dumbass friend, thinks he saw something crazy goin' on with you earlier..." He opened, somewhat arrogantly.
"...What?"
"Yeah, I don't even... I dunno. I bet him three bucks he was full of crap, though. He was going on about how he saw, like, Neuroi stuff. Nonsense, right?" He turned towards his buddy. "Jimmy, see, I told you you're nuts!"
"What?!" Suddenly, the boy now known as Jimmy had no fear at all and was coming over to make his case. "Whoa, I know what I saw!"
Sam weighed the pros and cons of either showing them what he did, or playing dumb. If he showed them, he'd surely be bombarded by questions by anyone in the vicinity, and if he played dumb, he would... well, not get bombarded by questions. The choice seemed obvious.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about." He told them.
"Umm, I'm pretty sure I saw-" An interruption came from the front of the room. "Class, please take a seat." The teacher stood up from his desk and addressed the class. He was an older gentleman, but he still seemed to have quite some energy. This was a good sign, as those tended to be the less strict types.
"I see some of you have noticed we have someone new joining us today. In the back, that's Sam, he'll be with us from now on."
Sam, who was hunched over to pull his PC out of his bag, gave a small wave."
"Heyyy... I've seen him before! Like, on the news or something!"
Oh boy...
"Yeah, so have I!" Someone else agreed. "Hey, aren't you like, one of those Neuroi Hybrids?"
"Uh... maybe...?" Sam timidly replied, not eager to answer a thousand questions.
"Wow... that's cool..."
"Dammit."
"Ha, now give me my three bucks!"
"Everyone, please, I understand Sam is different, but we're not going to bother him." The teacher attempted to stop the chatter. He succeeded, if only for a while. People stopped talking to Sam, but they still talked about him. It was to be expected.
He'd had his fair share of augments, more than most witches. Some were standard, common to all witches, like the ballistics computer and retinal display. But nobody could see those, though he personally could see the effects. Sam liked it that way. If you don't know, he concluded, you can't ask questions, right? Sadly, the days of not having to worry about people asking questions were over. He remembered Mia's response to this dilemma.
"Such is the life of a badass." She had said, which made him laugh. "Or, you could've gone a little lighter on the robotics."
Sam liked robotics, so he didn't bother going lighter on them. His new arms were stronger, had more degrees of freedom, and could bend in ways previously impossible for him. Plus, they were self-repairing thanks to the Fragment, which also powered them. The price for that, was the constant attention of everyone around him.
After class, was one of those times, when Sam wished he had gone lighter on the robotics. The rumor indeed spread quickly.
"Can you show us the Neuroi thing?" Somebody asked.
"Do it! Do it!"
Might as well appease them...
If the simple act of powering up the Core Fragment would satisfy the crowd, Sam figured he might as well do it. Needless to say, they went nuts. To be fair, most of them had never even met a witch before, let alone a Hybrid, a fact Sam neglected.
Morons.
"Um, ok, I really need to be going..." He said, hastily picking up his bag and escaping, to the crowd's disappointment. His relief faded when he was again ambushed by someone.
Sam didn't know what was familiar about this particular girl, but he swore he knew her from somewhere. She handed him a slip of paper with an IP address, simply saying, "We need to talk. 5:00 tonight.", and walking away.
"But... who even are you?!"
She gave a smile and winked. "You know me from somewhere, think about it!"
I only know one person who would give me an IP address as contact data. Liz Compton, hacker extraordinaire. She's got about the same technical knowledge as me, and together we could hack just about any system, but she always was so much faster than me. It seemed like every computer she touched, just melted away, leaving behind its secrets. Someday, I'll get her to tell me how she does it...
When he finally got home at 4:50, Sam had just enough time to start up a video chat on his PC before the 5:00 deadline. The number "4096" was also written on the card, which he assumed meant 4096-bit encryption. Setting that up took the bulk of the ten minutes, but sure enough, Liz had also used 4096-bit, so it worked.
Jeez, is she paranoid? A skilled hacker would take forever just to crack 1024-bit. Even with every computer in the world constantly crunching numbers, cracking 4096-bit would take years!
"You figured out who I am yet?" She asked him sarcastically.
"Course I have… Liz. Soon as I saw you wrote 4096 on that card, I thought, 'Only you'."
"Right, heheh… well, first off, those are some kick-ass cybernetics."
"I've been getting that… those idiots at school were absolutely amazed when I activated the Fragment."
"Pshh… you should've gone to stage two! That would've turned some heads."
"Yeah, I'm not sure that would go over well."
"Why not?"
"Cause it'd be kinda scary for a bystander to see that?"
"Isn't that the idea?"
"I'm not interested in giving somebody a heart attack."
"Fine… but promise me, if Jason picks a fight with you again, you'll do it."
"That's what his name is? Well, I doubt he will…"
"Yep, isn't he disgusting? He's kind of the school's resident jackass, picks fights all the time."
"I figured that much... he said I was on his 'turf'."
"Wow, that's stupid, even by his standards."
"Ok, so what exactly did you need? It's been on my mind all day."
"Well… I've been in touch with Mia, and you know how you told her to investigate why you were taken off the roster?"
"Mhm…"
"Yeah, so apparently there's some really shady shit going on behind the scenes. Just come downtown tonight, prepared for anything. And I mean anything. Seriously, there's like a gazillion counts of treason throughout the Liberion military. Lotta people want you dead."
"Whaaaat?"
"Really, no joke. Mia and I are going to Helios tomorrow, and we want you to come with."
"But Helios is-"
"I know where Helios is. We're gonna- aw, crap! Never mind, gotta go! Just remember, downtown's a war zone tonight, and watch your back!"
*Connection to host lost*
Sam thought her disconnection was rather abrupt, but he didn't bother to dwell on it. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to go back to fighting the Neuroi, or whatever it would be this time, but it beat spending another day in a school which was presumably full of idiots.
What troubled him more, was Liz herself. Or rather, how she acted, how her relaxed tone seemed to evaporate. He rarely, if ever, got a serious vibe from her. This meant she wasn't messing around, and that there was something REALLY bad happening.
What Mia had discovered, was a group within the military that had actually ALLIED itself with the Neuroi. They called themselves the Alliance. Clearly not the most imaginative group. They wanted Mia out of action too, but they couldn't take her off the roster without a good reason, which they lacked. They at least had a reason, to take Sam off, and thus they did. Alliance members theorized, that without any sort of weapons and equipment, he would pose little threat to them. However, General Alexander Robinson, the man in charge of the Alliance, had greater ambitions.
See, Robinson didn't merely want Sam dead. He wanted Sam alive. With just a few tweaks to either of the Core Fragments Sam possessed, Robinson could turn him into an ally. This was particularly attractive to him, because Sam was very strong in Hybrid form, but very weak with his inherent magic. His sister was quite the opposite, focused on her regular magic, and backed up by the regenerative properties of the Neuroi.
Both skill sets had their advantages and disadvantages. Robinson disliked magic, though. It was something he didn't understand. It represented a form of power he could not obtain. The abilities of Neuroi, however, could be understood, tamed, and even harnessed. This was his eventual goal. To harness for himself the power of the Neuroi. Even before he would reveal his organization to the world, he already had his top scientists working on an augment for this exact purpose. Simply installing a Core Fragment would only work in a witch, as the process put severe stress on the body. He hoped, that the capture of a person highly proficient with the abilities of the Fragment would help him to better understand it.
Robinson had been greatly looking forward to this day. It was the day he would finally break free of the system he had once known, and forge his own to replace it. And it all hinged on the first step of his plan; take over Shorewood for its Air Force base. He had a decent number of personnel inside as moles, who would go AWOL on the day of the operation and take ships with them.
However, as of 1700 hours on the day of the operation, the soon-to-be crown jewel of his fleet was missing – the brand-new battleship U.S.S. Starfury. This was a major blow to the success of the takeover, as many aspects of the undertaking were planned around having the firepower of a capital ship. A last-minute change of plans made the flagship of the takeover fleet U.S.S. Unforseen, a stealth-cruiser.
Despite the fact that his planned flagship was missing, Robinson had no reason to believe his plans had been uncovered. However, careful snooping by someone he intended to kill later on, Mia Brooks, had brought advance warning of the takeover to those who could stop it. With some difficulty, she managed to take off with the battleship and put it in orbit, where she would sit idle until hostiles appeared in Shorewood. She'd also contacted a good ally – Liz Compton, who would prove invaluable in the battle ahead.
The stage was set, actors in position, and the show was scheduled for 2100 hours…
Well, I don't know about you, but that felt much better than before, don't you think? Comments/critiques are appreciated.
A few notes:
- Mirage is a real-life airplane. It too takes the form of a delta-winged interceptor, so I thought the name was quite fitting :).
- Helios Station, which will be explored further later on, is a reference to a certain FPS/RPG series...
- The designation D-1504 is also a reference (VERY obsucre!).
- "Origins" is also the name of the album I listened to while writing this.
- For those who want to compare, the original chapters will still be available. Send me a PM if you want to make comparisons!
Well, that's all I got for now. Thanks for reading!
~Aviator