[A/N]: Howdy! I hope y'all enjoy the story, and if you do then make sure to leave a review telling me what specifically you like!
Wilkes made her way through the clouds over the divide in Berlin, expecting the barrage of flak that had accompanied previous attempts in clear skies. Her heart pounding in her chest harder and harder the further she goes into East Karlsland territory. Her De Havilland Mosquito strikers buzz loudly on her legs, and though she has a Bren, she is lacking an abundance of ammunition, traded for a camera for Photo Reconnaissance. Every so often she pulls a map out of her jacket and scrutinizes it before hastily cramming it back into the fleece-lined jacket and fearfully glancing over her shoulder. Twenty minutes into the flight she descends below the clouds, slinging the automatic rifle on her back and preparing the camera.
Ten thousand feet below her sits the primary airbase of the region, hosting hundreds of witches along with a few hundred fighters and bombers. The first few photos are blurry, so she's forced to descend even further, much to her discomfort, and linger even longer over the hornets nest.
After snapping a few dozen photos she turns to the northwest, not using the same route to return in case the ground crews called for fighters, and stays below the clouds, comfortable that no flak crews will shoot at a plane this far behind enemy lines. Another five minutes pass by, and after a quick cautious glance over her shoulder Wilkes notices a tight column of vehicles on the highway below.
"Hanover command, this is Canary. be advised, primary mission objective complete. Addition, enemy armored column containing at least three-zero tanks inbound from Frankfurt. My location is currently grid Hotel four-two, status is Romeo Tango Bravo. Canary out."
Releasing pressure on the earpiece Wilkes tightens her grip on her bren and accelerates, now trying to run the northern patrols and get back over friendly lines.
Everything is perfect, until it's not.
A glint on the lens of her glasses brings her attention to the sky above her, and her heart skips a beat when she finds nothing but blue skies, and a single black dot, high above her.
"Ooohh please don't see me…" she whispers to herself, accelerating further. She flies inverted, her back to the ground as she carefully watches the enemy witch for any sign that she's been noticed.
Her worst fears are confirmed when the dot gets progressively bigger, turning into a humanoid shape, and then into a short blonde girl toting a MG42.
"Shit!"
Unable to run from the diving witch she loads the bren and goes into a lazy right turn, trying to fool the witch into diving straight in at her and overshooting. The tactic works, though only to a certain degree. The witch dives in for the kill, and Wilkes turns into the attack, causing the burst of tracers to miss by a country mile.
The victory is short lived however, because when the witch zips past Wilkes notices the personal insignia on the girl's BF-109 striker unit.
A black tulip.
"Wait, blonde, short, fast as hell, and a black tulip...oh shit."
She tries to run back to the cloud bank, and radios back to base while she has the time. "Hanover, this is Canary! I need fighters at my previously listed grid coordinates now! I've got another witch climbing up my skirt! Someone please respond!"
Glancing over her shoulder she finds the witch slowly gaining after climbing again.
{Canary we'll send what we can but you're going to have to get closer to friendly lines.}
"Trude, it's The Black Devil."
{I'm on my way, try to stall her for as long as you can!}
"It's too late, she's going to catch up to me. I've gotta fight her."
Flipping onto her back she cuts the camera loose, letting it fall to the ground as she takes aim at the blonde head and pulls the trigger.
The bren empties its entire magazine in a few seconds, and while Wilkes is exchanging the magazines the blonde witch gets within firing range and cuts loose, ignoring the black smoke that belches from one of her striker units.
Wilkes dodges right, but still takes two bullets to the chest and gut before she can raise a shield to protect herself.
Her strength suddenly weakened due to the pain, she dives for the deck and finishes loading the box magazine into the bren, but places her hand against the bullet hole in her stomach, trying to last just a little longer.
"Mayday… mayday…mayday. This is Canary… I'm hit, and going down…"
The longer she stays in the dive the more numb her legs grow, until she can't feel them at all. Watching the ground race up at her she drops the bren and braces for the inevitable crash.
She smashes through the roof of a small single story building and slams into the ground, making a big crater in the floor.
"Ow…" She groans, her breathing becoming more labored as she extracts herself from the battered striker units and drags herself over to a desk in the corner, leaving a small line of crimson on the concrete floor of what used to be an office. By the time she's braced herself against the side of the desk there's a small trickle of dark blood running down her chin from the corner of her mouth, each ragged breath sounding more and more like a vulgar gurgle with every passing minute.
"This is… Flight officer Janet Wilkes… reporting… mission failed…" She wheezes out, ignoring the sound of a striker engine outside. "If anyone's there… I'm sorry." Slowly she reaches up and pulls the earpiece from her ear, gently placing it on the ground before smashing it with a fist.
Mere seconds later the door to the building opens, and the same blonde steps in, a Luger clenched steadily in her right hand, a small medkit in her left.
Wilkes looks over at her, spitting blood onto the floor. "Come to finish… the job?"
She holsters the luger, her eyes soft and sympathetic. "No… I can fix you up, we'll get you home once this is all over. I'm sorry that I had to do this."
Wilkes looks at her for a brief second before shakily lifting her right hand, her middle finger raised high in defiance. "Go to hell."
"Eh…? Are you kidding me?! Look at yourself! If you don't get medical attention you're going to die!"
"Good… better than leaving my friends."
The witch strides over, kneeling down beside Wilkes, despite the Britannians resistance.
"Get the hell… away from me."
"I'm not letting you die when I can help you." The East Karlsland witch restrains one of her hands and starts holding a field dressing to the bullet hole in Wilkes' chest.
"Just let me die you bitch…" Wilkes wheezes, trying to shove her away with her free hand.
"Not gonna happen, now hold still so that I can-eh?" The sudden absence of weight on her right hip brings the girls attention to Wilkes' free hand, which has lifted her luger from the holster, and holds it by the barrel. Wilkes puts all of her strength into the swing and clubs her upside the head with the pistol, knocking her down and freeing Wilkes' right arm.
Wilkes grabs the pistol by the grip, takes aim at the dazed blonde, and pulls the trigger, only for it to stop halfway.
"Damn it… where's the bloody safety?"
Wilkes fiddles with the pistol for a second before the blonde recovers from the blow earlier and jumps on top of her, wrestling for the handgun.
"I don't want to fight you anymore! Just give me my gun and let me patch you up!"
"Like hell, shut up and d-"
*POW!*
The sharp report of the pistol makes their ears ring inside the small building, Erica gasps in shock and Wilkes lets out a sharp exhale like she'd been punched in the gut, their wrestling having suddenly ceased when the gun went off.
Wilkes and Erica look down down to see another bullet hole in the former's chest, directly in between her two small breasts.
Underneath her, the blonde holds the pistol, but Wilkes' thumb is inside the trigger guard, pinning her index finger to the trigger.
"N-no! It was an accident! I-I didn't mean to!" Cried Erica as she took back the pistol.
"That's the ticket…" Wilkes groans, rolling off the blonde and laying spread-eagled on the blood-spattered concrete floor as her blood pools around her even quicker than before. She stares up at the blue sky above through the hole in the roof and takes short gasps of air while she grabs a locket from her jacket pocket. "Sorry Trude… I couldn't do it…"
The blonde all but throws the pistol across the building and scrambles to Wilkes, putting pressure on the new wound. "Stay with me! We can still get you home alive!"
Wilkes slowly turns her head, looking at the blonde before weakly raising her hand and touching the black tips of her hair. "Cute…I-I can see...W-why Trude ta-lks...about...you...Black...Death."
The last of her breath escapes her bloody lips in a drawn out sigh, and her hand falls limply to her side, her eyes staring unyieldingly at the blonde knelt beside her.
The witch slowly removes her hands from the wound, and hangs her head as she wipes the blood from Wilkes' mouth before reaching up and moving her eyelids down, holding them closed until they stay shut on their own.
"I'm sorry for what I did to you… I hope you can forgive me…" she whispers, tears streaking down her cheeks and dripping off her chin into the pooled blood.
Grabbing Wilkes' hands she folds them on the fallen Witches chest over the brass locket and bows her head respectfully. "Rest easy."
Suddenly the locket springs open, revealing a color photo of an unawares Trude, which makes the blonde shed even more tears "Trude...I'm sorry."