The Isle of Wight Detachment Group was mourning the loss of all witches who were lost to Cell. Even though it had been a month without any witch casualties, and there was no reappearance of the strange creature, surviving units around the world were feeling great pressure.

With so many powerful witches lost, the fight against the Neuroi would be nearly impossible. Still, it wasn't anything the girls would give up on. Wilma Bishop had lost her younger sister Lynne to Cell's absorption. Now that she was gone, Wilma could barely concentrate when fighting.

Kadomaru Misa, the group's leader, called her into her office. "Wilma, are you sure you're going to be okay? You've been moping around a lot, and your combat efficiency has declined."

"Don't worry about me, commander!" Wilma tried to force a smile, but she could tell that Misa wasn't buying it.

"Look, I know this has been hard for you to lose your sister, but you're not the only one that's lost loved ones."

Wilma could sense where this conversation was going. She got rid of her smile amd shouted, "Well what about you, huh? It's so easy for you to say that when you haven't lost anybody remotely close to you!"

Misa sighed. She knew Wilma was right. "But still, that doesn't mean you should just give up! The other witches around you need your guidance! Laura has gone through similar traumatic experiences losimg friends to the Neuroi, but she's recovered a lot better than you have!"

While those two were arguing, Amelie Planchard was listening outside. As she was listening, Francie Gerard, a Liberion witch, snuck up on her. "Hey, you eavesdroppin'?"

"Ah!" Amelie was startled. "Be quiet!"

Francie knew what was going on. She saw Wilma's behavior spiraling down ever since she heard about her sister and the rest of the Strike Witches' deaths. "I looked up to Shirley a lot, and you looked up to Perrine. Now they're both gone, but we managed to fight just fine a whole month after. What's Wilma's problem?"

"But...Wilma lost her little sister...it's completely different, right?"

Francie grumbled, "Yeah, but a whole month has still gone by. That Cell creature killed so many witches, not just Lynne. But it's gone now, so we should be happy after a whole month of not losing anybody else."

Laura Toth also approached them. "Excuse me, but the Neuroi are still a threat. I lost a lot of friends to them, remember? They're also the ones who destroyed Cell, not us. If anything, we should be grateful the Neuroi killed that thing before he absorbed us all."

"I don't know what to think about that," Amelie said.

"At least the anti-Witch faction is gone," Francie said. "Without Cell, there's no way they could start a war with us witches."

Wilma and Misa both left the office together and interrupted the girls. "Are you finished eavesdropping?" Misa asked.

Wilma added, "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Let's just focus on staying prepared for the Neuroi."

"That's right," Misa added. "With the Strike Witches gone, we have a much greater responsibility to protect the region."

"Yes ma'am," the girls reluctantly replied together.

The next day in the hangar, Wilma was tuning her units while sitting next to a recent picture of herself and Lynne together. She couldn't help but look at it every minute.

"There you are," Laura said as she walked in. "We've been looking all over for you."

"What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?" Wilma said with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Laura tossed a newspaper on the workstation where Wilma was sitting. "It's back."

Wilma looked at the front cover, and saw the headline, "GRIM REAPER OF WITCHES RETURNS"

"Wha-What is this?"

"It's exactly what it says. That thing has been hunting witches again."

"I thought it was destroyed!"

"So did everyone else," Laura said with a frown on her face.

The picture below the headline's large and bolded font revealed several uniforms, panties, and boots lying on the floor - as if each witch who had worn them vanished into thin air.

Wilma continued to stutter her words. "What...what is this? Where did this happen?"

"It happened to the famous Red Pants and the rest of the 504th Joint Fighter Wing - the Ardor Witches stationed in Romagna."

"You mean...they're all..."

"Dead," Laura bluntly finished. There's not a single trace of them, not even their magic. Cell is the only possible explanation."

Wilma crumpled up the paper and threw it away. "So what are we supposed to do about it? It happened on the other side of Europe!"

Misa entered the hangar and continued to explain. "We just received word of this. It happened just a few days ago, but we're getting word of a fast moving object that was headed back to where the Strike Witches base was."

Wilma couldn't believe it. Misa finished, "It's out job to intercept and destroy Cell once and for all. Get ready for combat."

The rest of the witches entered their Striker Units, grabbed their weapons, and began flying to the site of the Strike Witches old base in Britannia.

A large capsule began its descent in the air, and crash-landed in the water near a giant runway. Because the base was abandoned and declared a quarantine zone after the anti-Witch faction was purged by the military, nobody was around to inspect the crash-site.

Once the capsule opened, a young man with short purple hair and a blue jacket stepped out, carrying a large sword on his back. Using his own powers, he flew inside the nearby base, ignoring all the yellow tape warning of the premises being a quarantine zone.

He inspected all of the unusual machinery inside the laboratory, including a series of vats - one of which contained a naked young woman inside with red hair and wires attached to her body.

"So, these must be the Strike Witches I've heard so much about. The ones that Cell has been absorbing to become even more powerful."

The warrior raised his hand, and blew an energy beam through the vat, destroying the already deceased witch's body. "That's one less witch he can absorb."

All of a sudden, an alien sounding screeching noise echoed in the laboratory.

"Who's there!" He shouted, grabbing his sword and pulling it out in front of him.

Several red beams blasted through inside, causing the ceiling to collapse. The warrior dodged all the debris, and flew outside.

There he was greeted by a black alien life form - but it had a tail that was reminiscent of Cell.

"What the hell is this thing?!"

"That's what we'd like to know," Kadomaru Misa and her squad of witches flew up to the stranger. "We'd also like to know who you are, because as far was we know, men can't fly on their own at all!"

"My name is Trunks, and I've been sent from the future to stop a being called Cell. Have you heard of him?"

"Heard of him?" Wilma shouted. "That bastard wiped out over half of the most powerful witches in the world!"

"I see," said Trunks, lowering his head. "Guess I'm too late."

Their conversation was interrupted when the unusual Neuroi sneaked behind an unsuspecting Francie. It stabbed its tail inside her back, and began siphoning her flesh and blood into its own body. "AAHHHHHH!"

"Look out!" Trunks took his sword, and slashed the Neuroi's tail off, sending all of the blood and tissue Francie lost falling down out of the tube.

The Neuroi retreated, and flew back to the hive that it came from.

"Get it out of me! Get it out of me!" Francie shrieked as the tail was still stuck inside her.

"Calm down, Francie!" Misa tried ripping the tail out from her, but it kept whipping back and forth as if it had a mind of its own.

Trunks grabbed the tail with ease, and yanked it out.

"Ahhh!" Francie grabbed her back as she was still in considerable pain.

Trunks examined the tail, and said, "This is definitely the work of Cell. Where is he?"

As Misa and Wilma tried to stop Francie's bleeding, Laura replied, "Destroyed, by the Neuroi."

"Huh?"

Laura continued to explain. "But it looks like the Neuroi have adapted a knew way of fighting us - by absorbing us witches and assimilating us into their hive."

Trunks said, "My mission was to destroy Cell in this time period. But it looks like there's still quite a mess to clean up."

Once Francie's bleeding was under control and she was being supported by Wilma, Misa flew up to Trunks and said, "We can discuss this later. One of my witches is badly injured. Let's go down to the base for now."

As they landed in the old hangar, Francie was being helped out of her Striker Units and laid down to recover. "We don't have any bandages, so my coat will have to do," Wilma said.

The moment Francie was settled and resting, Trunks looked at the hive in the sky. "So that's the Neuroi, huh?"

"That's right," Misa said. Us witches and the Neuroi have been fighting for a very long time. But then that Cell creature arrived and thinned our ranks."

"So how did you kill him?"

Misa shook her head. "We didn't kill him, it was the Neuroi who destroyed him after he consumed much of the Noble Witches."

Amelie added, "Cell was absorbing witches to gain our magic. Some people thought the Neuroi could be destroyed if all of our power was combined into one powerful being."

Trunks put his hand up to his chin. "So it wasn't just to be an all-powerful being? That can't be right."

"Whatever his reasons, he didn't do much to hurt the Neuroi; meanwhile witches around the world are frightful of their lives that they could be next," Misa said.

"I'll help you," Trunks said. "If that thing is evolved because of Cell, it's technically still my responsibility."

"We appreciate you help," Wilma said. "But we don't even know how to fight it. If we can't even beat Cell, how do we stand a chance against this thing."

Trunks smiled. "Don't worry. I come from a long line of powerful Saiyans. We're the most powerful beings in the universe. I've never heard of these Neuroi, but we've dealt with far stronger enemies before."

Up in the Neuroi hive, Voroth began to grow a new tail. Once it did, it started laying several eggs - all gestated from the witches it had consumed back in Romagna.

Soon those eggs would hatch into Neuroi cores, which would then grow into Neuroi witches, taking the form of each witch that had been consumed. But it needed more.

Once night had fallen, Trunks and all the witches were fast asleep except for Wilma, whose turn it was to stand guard in the event of an ambush. "Too bad we don't have any Night Witches on our squad," she grumbled to herself.

Voroth had managed to to sneak behind the clouds in the night sky. It flew far past the base without being seen, then turned back around to ambush the group from behind. With Wilma's eyes locked onto the massive hive in the night sky, she was completely oblivious to what was happening to her injured friend.

Voroth noticed Francie still laying flat on her stomach, trying to recover from her deep wound. She slowly woke up and mumbled as she heard something approaching. "Hey...who's there...?"

Voroth wrapped its new tail around Francie's mouth to keep her from screaming, and stabbed its stinger in the witch's back again.

"Mmmmmph!" Francie cried out, but Wilma couldn't hear. Everyone else was fast asleep, including Trunks.

Voroth began slurping up Francie's insides again. Slowly, the witch melted down, her face dissolving into a pile of flesh, with her arms and legs shriveling up. More and more of her blood and tissue rushed up Voroth's tail, and into its body. A few minutes later, Francie was completely consumed; all that was left of her was her uniform and underwear lying on ground under Wilma's coat.

Next was Amelie. Voroth poked its tail up between her thighs and stabbed straight through her panties and in between her legs. The penetrating feeling woke her up, but she wasn't sure what was happening. All she could feel was a swooshing feeling being sucked out of her midsection, like she was going to the bathroom.

It was only a matter of minutes before she blacked out once and for all. Voroth continued to drink her up without Wilma noticing. More of Amelie's fluids began to pump into Voroth, replenishing it with the witch's nutrients, and supplying it with magic to produce more eggs.

Trunks abruptly woke up on his own. He looked around, and saw Voroth pulling its tail out of a witch's panties, slurping up the last of her remains.

"DAMN YOUUUUUU!"

Trunks grabbed his sword, and slashed at the enemy Neuroi. Wilma looksd back at the scuffle - and noticed both Francie and Amelie were gone. "NOOO! How could I have let my guard down?!"

Laura and Misa both immediately woke up to Trunks and Voroth fighting in mid-air. "Ladies, into your Striker Units and help destroy this thing once and for all!"

Voroth launched several beams at Trunks, but he dodged them easily. He thrust his sword into Voroth's gut, causing it to shriek in pain. "We're ending this now! I won't let you absorb any more of the witches!"

"Look for the core!" Misa shouted.

Voroth wrapped its tail around Trunks and tightened its grip. "Aaarggh!"

Trunks was forced to let go of his sword, and Voroth retreated again, this time with his sword through its stomach.

Misa flew up to Trunks and askes, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, everything but my pride," Trunks said after he was released.

They all watched as Voroth flew back into the hive, with two more witches consumed and used for fuel for producing more Neuroi eggs.

Misa, Laura, and Wilma were all that was left.

Trunks said, "I'm sorry. Looks like I underestimated that thing."

"It's not your fault..." Laura said. "It's all our fault for being so weak."

"Laura!" Misa shouted.

"Just ignore her," said Wilma. "She just lost two more friends...as did you and I. She's just used to this pain too much."

"Tch!" Misa clicked her tongue. Now what do we do? She asked herself.

With no outside help from the military, the witches were in greater danger than before.

Trunks put his hand on Misa's shoulder. "When that thing comes back, I'll cut it to pieces."

Inside the hive, Voroth began laying even more eggs with its tail. Like what happened to the Ardor Witches, these eggs were made directly from Francie's and Amelie's freshly grounded meat and bones, and were even infused with their magic to help fight their friends.

It would not be long until they hatched into more Neuroi cores.