STRIKE WITCHES: HEROS' RETURN: SHIRLEY'S STORY
Chapter One
Water sprayed behind her as the witch sped across the ocean, mere feet above the waves. She blasted by her earth-bound friends as they watched her and monitored her speed. She was almost there. Pushing her Mustang strikers a bit faster, Shirley shattered the barrier with a sonic boom. This was the third time she had achieved speeds of Mach 1, the speed of sound. With a holler of triumph, she pushed even faster, willing herself to go beyond her goal. However, her magic was at its limit, and she slowed down reluctantly. Her friends were cheering for her.
"That was amazing Shirley-san!" Yoshika said. Lucchini was jumping up and down. Emily gave her a thumbs-up, and Lynne clapped for her.
"Thanks guys," Shirley said as she landed in the hangar. Docking on a support unit, she got out of her strikers and checked the engines. They were extremely hot, even with the customized cooling systems she had installed. "Guess I'm not gonna be able to do that too often," Shirley said to herself. She let the engines cool before checking everything else. Making sure everything was in top condition, she gave it a satisfied nod.
Shirley felt sad that her homeland Liberion had come under attack, but at the same time it gave her new strength. To defend her home was an honor and a new challenge. She was always up for a challenge, though she preferred it had something to do with speed. But this worked too, for it had a good cause. What surprised her with all that was going on, was that there was a warlock from her own country, which wasn't known for producing witches in the first place.
Drake Holt was his name, and he led the 501st as Marshal of the Strike Witches. At first she had her reservations about him. After all, she had never thought that a warlock could actually exist in the first place. But he had proved his mettle, both in his leadership and combat abilities. He had earned everyone's respect and gave it back as well. As she was lost in her thoughts, that particular person entered the hangar.
"I'm assuming it went well?" Drake asked, walking over to her.
"Indeed. Though I doubt I can pull that off often: it puts great strain on the engines," Shirley replied.
"I'd imagine it puts great strain on you too," Drake said. He put his hand on the striker, and then immediately took it off, crying out in pain.
"Careful, it's hot," Shirley said casually, switching tools.
"You could have told me that before I put my hand on it," Drake said.
"Well who would be stupid enough to think it was cold, especially after it was just used?" Drake scowled. "Watch the back talk. I outrank you, remember?" Shirley just laughed.
The day continued on, with nothing out of the ordinary. Shirley spent most of her time in the hangar, tinkering with her strikers. Lucchini joined her in the hangar, but spent most of the time sleeping, as she usually did. Shirley only stopped working on her strikers when the nighttime bell sounded, and the night witches entered the hangar to begin their patrol.
"Good luck you guys," she said as she put away her tools. Sanya nodded.
The next day, Shirley was awoken by the sirens.
Neuroi? At this hour? she thought. Moving quickly, she pulled on a long shirt and dashed out of her room, just as the other witches were beginning to stir. She made it to the hangar before anyone else, jumping into her strikers and taking off.
"What's going on?" Shirley asked Sanya over the radio. She and the other night witches had just come back from their patrol.
"I'm not sure. I'm definitely picking up a Neuroi signature, but it's moving at speeds beyond any Neuroi we have encountered before. It seems to be making a direct course to the base. This is very strange," the night witch replied.
So it's fast, huh? Let us see just how fast it is, Shirley thought. Pouring all her magic into her strikers, she blasted toward the east, where the Neuroi was inbound from. Within minutes she saw it, a tiny black speck in the sky. Then she blinked. When her eyes opened again, it was right in front of her. The alien shot past her like a bullet, missing her by inches.
"What the hell?!" Shirley gasped, as the Neuroi zoomed in on Pearl Harbor. Within seconds it was upon the base.
Drake had just walked into the command center that overlooked the entire base, when he saw the Neuroi. It flashed in towards the base and fired its beams. It hit the training yard, where half of it was soon ablaze. But as soon as it had came, it was gone.
"Contain that blaze!" Drake ordered. One of the new recruits, who's magic involved water, summoned a small rainstorm over the yard, where the fire was quickly put out. Where the beam had struck however, the equipment was beyond saving. "Everyone, return to base."
"What was that?" Drake demanded. He met Shirley and the night witches in the hangar.
"We don't know sir. The only thing we know is that it was a super-fast Neuroi," Sanya said. Drake growled in frustration. "I don't like this. That Neuroi will be back, and we have no way of knowing how to fight it," he said.
"I doubt it is able to move that fast all the time. You would need a lot of energy to sustain such speeds," Shirley said. Drake looked at her. "So you're suggesting that this Neuroi only displays such speed during an attack?" Shirley nodded.
"Hit and run tactics. Simple, yet effective. But that also means that it will be vulnerable after its attack. Shirley, you have the most experience when it comes to high-speed chases, so you'll lead this mission. You'll have Yoshika with you, who has the fastest striker. You two will remain on high alert until the Neuroi comes back. Follow it, and see if you can catch up to it. Report this to Yoshika," Drake said.
"Yes sir!" Shirley said.
Shirley looked for Yoshika, first checking the kitchens. Sure enough, the Fuso witch was hard at work making breakfast with her girlfriend and best friend, Lynne. Shirley approached them.
"Yo Lynne, can I steal Yoshika from you for a second?" she said. Lynne looked at her curiously. "Uh, sure," she replied. Shirley pulled Yoshika aside before speaking.
"Drake wants us to work together to deal with this new Neuroi. We are on high alert, so be ready at any moment to jump into your strikers. This thing is fast, so every second counts. Once we are in the air, I'll fill you in. Understood?" Shirley reported.
"Yes ma'am," Yoshika replied.
"Good. You can go back to Lynne now. Don't get into trouble," Shirley said, winking before she left. Yoshika blushed but otherwise said nothing.
We're gonna need to be as fast as we can, but we also need to conserve our magic. How are we going to balance the two? Shirley thought as she wandered the base. As she did this she bumped into Sakamoto.
"Oh, sorry ma'am. I didn't see you there," she said. Sakamoto laughed lightly.
"You should pay more attention then. Wouldn't want to be caught off guard, now would we?"
"No. Hey, I have a question for you," Shirley said. Sakamoto raised an eyebrow. "I'm all ears."
"How can Yoshika and I keep up with this really fast Neuroi, yet still have energy to fight when it slows down?" Sakamoto thought for a moment.
"You would need a storing device, a magical battery of some sort that you can pour your magic into when not using it. There, when you need it in battle, you can draw on that stored magic without expending any in your body," she said.
"Great! Where can I get one?" Shirley asked.
"I don't know. I've heard of crystals being used to store magic, but they are only rumors. Why don't you check Drake's library? He might have a book or two that can help," Sakamoto said.
"Cool, thanks!" Shirley said. She then ran to Drake's office, which doubled as his library. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and each shelf was crammed with books. Not even bothering to knock, she opened the door. Drake was in the middle of a conversation with one of the ground crew captains, but looked up as Shirley entered.
"Shirley? What do you want?" he asked, dismissing the captain.
"Do you have any books about magic storage?" Shirley asked. Drake nodded, then pointed to a corner bookshelf.
"Top shelf. Knock yourself out. Just make sure you put them back where you found them, and in the condition they were originally in. It took me forever to find those," he replied.
"Thanks," Shirley said. She grabbed a dozen books from the top shelf and brought them to her room. Then she poured over them, looking for anything that would help. She opened one book to find it about crystals.
"So crystals can store magical energy. Interesting," Shirley said to herself. She found that one could indeed pour their magical energy into various crystals and draw from them. Certain crystals, like rubies or emeralds, were more powerful than others, like quartz and other common crystals. "Where am I going to get rubies and emeralds?" Shirley wondered. She highly doubted Drake would spend so much on an experiment. Deciding that quartz was going to be the crystal of choice, she searched for information on maximizing quartz's potential. By midnight however, she had found nothing, and was tired. Putting the books away, she crawled into bed and fell asleep.
The next morning she woke up and went straight back to the books, determined to find an answer to her problem. Yoshika eventually entered with Shirley's breakfast.
"What are you doing Shirley-san?" she asked, peering at the books.
"Trying to see how we can use crystals to give us the edge we need to fight this Neuroi," Shirley replied. She thanked Yoshika for the meal and started eating.
"How could crystals help?" Yoshika asked.
"First of all, this Neuroi is fast. Faster than me, and most likely faster than you. But my theory is that it can only sustain such speed for a short amount of time. The plan is to follow the Neuroi as fast as we can the moment we spot it on the radar. We follow it until it slows down, and then we take it down. The problem is magic consumption. We may have enough magic to chase the Neuroi down, but in doing so, we won't have any magic left to fight it. Or at least I won't. If we can make use of crystals and turn them into magical batteries, we may have the extra magic needed for that fight. Make sense?" Shirley explained.
"I think so. So what's the problem then?"
"The problem is that we don't have powerful enough crystals for the job, and we can't afford them either. Rubies and emeralds will cost us an arm and a leg. What we are forced to use is quartz. It's common enough. The sand on the beach is made of quartz and the like. But it has very little capacity for magic. For even a five minute fight, we would need over fifty pounds worth of sand. Not worth it. So I'm trying to find a way to increase the amount of magic quartz can handle. Want to help me with it?" Yoshika nodded. "Sure!"
The two of them poured over the books, looking for their answer, until Yoshika was dragged away by Sakamoto for training. It was a little after lunch when Shirley found something.
Eila was in her room shuffling around her rune tiles. She was surprised when Shirley entered her room. "Has my room become some sort of attraction now?" Eila snapped.
"Do you have any crystals I can borrow?"
"Crystals? Yeah, but what for?"
"An experiment," Shirley said. Eila looked at her dubiously, but pointed to her bedside drawer. "In there." Shirley looked through the drawer and picked out just about all the crystals there.
"Hey! I didn't say you could borrow all of them!" Eila shouted.
"Sorry, I kind of need them. I'll return them when I'm done, I promise!" Shirley said on her way out.
Shirley went to the hangar and placed the crystals on her workbench. Grabbing some copper wire, a bunch of tools, and some more scrap metal, she got to work. She wound the copper wire around a set of amethyst crystals and made what looked like batteries out of them. When she was done with that, she brought them to her strikers and rerouted the magical engines to include the batteries. She finished it off by pouring as much magic as she could comfortably handle into the batteries. It unfortunately wasn't as much as she would have liked, but it was enough for now.
"There, that should do it," Shirley said, wiping her brow.
"That should do what Shirley?" a voice said from above. Shirley looked up to see Lucchini lounging on a rafter.
"Lucchini! I didn't see you there. I'm just working on a little project, that's all," she said. Lucchini jumped down and inspected the modifications on Shirley's strikers. "What are they?" she asked.
"Batteries. You pour your magic into them when you aren't using it, and you can take magic from them when you need it," Shirley replied.
"Cool!" Lucchini said.
"Yeah. Say, what time is it?"
"How should I know? I just woke up," Lucchini said, laughing. The two of them went to find someone who knew the time.
Later in the evening, Shirley returned to Drake's office. "So, how is your little experiment going?" Drake asked.
"Good. I have yet to test it though," Shirley replied. Drake raised an eyebrow. "Better get on top of that then. The last thing we need is something bad to happen during battle," he said.
"They should be stable enough, I wired it to the strikers in a way that if something malfunctions with the batteries, the strikers will eject them from the system. Since I'm only using amethyst, it wouldn't be a total loss."
"To us anyway. Next time you head to the market, find Eila some new crystals. She was griping about it to me earlier," Drake said. Shirley laughed guiltily. "Will do sir." Just then, Yoshika and Lynne walked in.
"Ah good, you two are just in time. Thank you Shirley, that will be all," Drake said, dismissing her. Shirley nodded and left. She thought about what Drake had said.
It's true. I need to test how the batteries work in flight before using them in combat, she thought. Returning to the hangar, she equipped her strikers and took off as quietly as her Merlin engines would allow her. When she gained enough altitude, she engaged the batteries. They lit up with magical energy, casting a violet glow on her strikers. She felt a surge of energy, and without meaning to, shattered the sound barrier for the fourth time. This time, she was able to sustain that speed for over several minutes. But the batteries had their limits too, and were soon depleted. Shirley returned to the hangar. Minna was there waiting for her.
"Might I suggest testing your experiment during the day?" she said, as Shirley landed.
"Sorry ma'am," she replied.
"I'll let you off this time. Anyway, how did it go? Drake filled me in on what you were doing," Minna said.
"It went okay. The batteries worked, but are not powerful enough for what we need," Shirley answered.
"I see. Well, even if they are not powerful enough, they are safe to use and do give an advantage, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then you have permission to install these batteries on Yoshika's strikers as well as yours," Minna said. Shirley looked at her. "Really?"
"Really. But Drake also warns you not to tinker with the engines of the Shinden-kai. Just do what you need to do to install the batteries, and just that. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am."
Shirley immediately got to work on Yoshika's strikers. Installing them on a jet striker was a bit tricky, but she got the work done without a hitch. All the while, she was fighting the urge to take apart and examine the striker. By the time she was done, it was past midnight. Drowsily putting away her tools, she slumped her way to her room and fell into bed.
Shirley awoke to Yoshika shaking her.
"Shirley-san, Shirley-san, wake up!" Yoshika said.
"Wha-what's going on?" Shirley asked groggily.
"The Neuroi has been detected on the radar!"