"Hey! What took so long? Is everything alright" Yoshika asked as Shirley took a seat at the table, soon followed by Eila and Sanya.
"Y-yup!" She answered quickly and shoved a fork full of potato in her mouth. "I was just got carried away while I was tinkering with my striker." She said trying to clear up the suspicion.
"But when we got there you weren't-" Eila began, but was interrupted when Lucchini barged into the room quite enthusiastically, frolicking to her seat next to the orange head witch.
"Wowww!~" Lucchini purred, looking at the food admirably. "This looks awesome Yoshika!"
"Hahaha, Thanks Lucchini! But Lynette did most of the work." Yoshika replied blushing and rubbing the back of her head. "All I did was cut the ingredients though" Lynette replied softly.
"Either way you girls make quite a team!" Major Sakamoto cut in " Since I've always been concentrating on training, I never really got the time to learn how to prepare a dish like this, the most I can do is make rice. Hahahaha~" Sakamoto said while giving one of her trademark laughs.
"I don't know if that's something to be proud of." Barkhorn whispered, which in turn rewarded her, a nudge and a scary glare from Minna.
Shirley couldn't help but laugh inwardly at the karsland soldier who just stared at her food intently with a terrified look.
Her mind traveled to the younger girl once again, not surprisingly. She glanced over to the younger, who was happily eating her meal, and couldn't help but smile. She really truly loved the girl. It wasn't just physical attraction or sexual attraction. She loved everything about the younger girl, and she would do anything for her. Just being around the younger girl brought her unimaginable happiness.
But she hated the other feelings that came with it. The feeling of wanting, or rather needing every part of the Romanian girl.
"oiii, If you keep staring at her like that you might start drooling Shirley." Hartmann yawned.
"W-what?! I wasn't staring!" Shirley jumped up from her chair blushing furiously.
Hartmann simply arched an eyebrow questioningly, and gave her a smirk as if she knew exactly what was going on.
"Shirley? Are you alright, your face is all red." Lucchini asked worriedly pressing her hand against the witches forehead. Which in response got an amazing shade of red emanating from the older girl's face.
"I-IT-There's Noth-" Before Shirley could finish mumbling her sentence though the neuroi alarm sounded resonating loudly throughout the base.
Minna jumped up from her chair and quickly began giving out orders.
"There appears to be two different neuroi both heading in different directions. So will have to have two groups of witches each consisting of 5 witches to intercept each one. The first group that will attack the neuroi heading North-East will be. Mio, Yoshika, Lynette, Perrine, and Hartmann with Mio being this squads leader. While the second team intercepting the faster neuroi going North-West will be Shirley, Barkhorn, Eila, Lucchini, and Sanya and with Barkhorn leading. I'll stay here and keep you guys updated. Understood?
"Yes ma'am!" They all said in unison and took off for the hangar.
Now all in the sky the witches separated and took off to their ordered locations.
"Something feels weird about this." Shirley whispered to herself as she scanned the sky for the soon up-coming neuroi.
"Lucchini, stay close to me alright." Shirley said looking back at the Romangan.
"K!" She replied cheerily speeding up so she could keep up with the Liberion.
Eila flew towards Shirley. "You have a weird feeling to?" Eila asked trying to keep her voice low to not startle the other witches.
"Yeah.." Shirley replied glaring into the distance. "Something just doesn't feel right."
Eila started to decrease her speed until she was now beside Sanya again, and pulled out one of her Tarot cards.
"Death, huh." She whispered looking at the tarot card in her hand representing death and disaster.
"What's wrong?" Sanya asked softly. Watching the suomus worriedly from the side noticing the worried expression she wore.
"I-Its nothing!" She shoved the card back into her pocket. "But, you should stick close to me to." Eila said gliding closer over to Sanya and giving her a serious stare.
"A-alright." She replied a little surprised by the quick change of personality of the usually outgoing and at times mischievous girl.
"There it is!" Barkhorn yelled as the fast moving Neuroi finally came into view.
"It's gigantic!" Lucchini yelled out in awe.
The size of it at least two times larger than a regular neuroi.
Major Sakamoto lifted up her eye patch and scanned the horizon. "I still don't see anything."
"That's strange. We should have intercepted it by now." Perrine stated also keeping a look-out.
"Maybe, Minna's calculations were incorrect about the direction it was going?" Yoshika proposed.
"Or it could have changed directions." Lynette added in.
"No, I really doubt that. And from what we saw on the radar, this Neuroi we're dealing with can only move in straight lines." Major Sakamoto answered quickly dismissing those ideas.
"It would have been a lot more helpful if our transmission with base didn't go out as well." Mio Said frowning as she tapped the ear-piece in her ear. 'First the neuroi vanishes and now the transmission with base is lost'
"Im hungry~" Hartmann complained flapping her arms around dramatically trying to get her point across. "If Trude was here she would have gave me more chocolate" She added under her breath pouting.
The major sighed. "Maybe we should meet back up with the other squad."
"Captain Barkhorn, what is the situation on your end?" Mio said into the earpiece.
…..
"Barkhorn? Shirley? Does anyone copy?" Mio said trying again to make contact with the other witches.
"So we didn't just loose connection with base. But also with the other squad." Sakamoto frowned. "What the hell is going on here?"
"Major! Over there! It appears to be the neuroi we've been searching for." Perrine said grabbing the attention of the confused witch.
"Nice eye's Perrine! Everyone commence attack and draw its attention while I look for the core!" Sakamoto yelled.
"Greattt" Hartmann responded flying lazily with no particular interest towards the neuroi.
"Right!" Responded the more motivated and energetic witches.
The four witches all zoomed toward the neuroi quickly drawing its attention away from the major.
"Tonnerre!" Perrine called out her famous magical ability sending a shockwave of electricity toward the neuroi which seemed to take almost no damage at all from her attack.
"Sturm!" Hartmann, quickly following Perrine's lead. Creating a gust of wind around her as she span in a circular motion and went right through the wing of the neuroi. And to no surprise of any of the witches it completely regenerated in seconds.
They continued their attacks for about another minute while the Major continued to look for the core but could not find a single trace of it.
"Everyone stop!" The major called out.
"I cannot locate the core anywhere. And it's pretty safe to assume that it's not here."
"Also if you guys noticed this thing, hasn't even shot one laser at us yet." Hartmann said nonchalantly.
"Y-Your right! I just realized that!" Yoshika said surprised.
Perrine sighed "your so clueless aren't you Yoshika. You've been so caught up in shooting, you haven't even realized the enemy wasn't even fighting back?"
Yoshika rubbed the back of her head and laughed "Sorry. Sorry I just got carried away."
"This is no laughing matter." Major Sakamoto interrupted. "The others are in danger!"
Now completely serious Hartmann flew up to Sakamoto "Are you saying Trude's in trouble?" she asked worriedly.
"We have every reason to believe so, this neuroi was obviously a decoy." Mio said seriously.
"We have to catch up to them right now!" Hartmann said taking off into the direction of the other squadron and was quickly followed by the four other witches.
"All right listen up!" Barkhorn commanded "Since this thing is so damn big we'll break apart into teams and hit it in different locations. Sanya and Eila you get the rear. Lucchini and Shirley you get the front, and I'll hit it from bellow! Got it?"
"Yes ma'am!" everyone responded and took off to their directed location.
With all of their teamwork they slowly started to chip away at the neuroi until the core was finally revealed.
"Sanya, it's all yours!" Barkhorn called out to her.
"Right!" Sanya said and blasted her Fliegerhammer rocket launcher straight at the core successfully destroying it.
They all watched as the ginormous neuroi started to slowly crumble away into tiny fragments.
"Nice job Sanya!" Lucchini called out happily giving her a thumbs up.
Eila watched as the Fragments started to slowly fade away and pulled out her tarot card once more. "Does that mean something bad is going to happen to the other squad intercepting the other neuroi" She whispered frowning.
But her question was soon answered when a much smaller neuroi emerged from the water right below them and shot a laser directly at the unsuspecting Romangan girl.
"Lucchini watch out!" Shirley yelled frantically. Flying as fast as she could at the other girl. 'Dammit im not going fast enough!' Shirley grinded her teeth together.
"I have to go faster! Dammit I have to go FASTER!" Shirley cried out desperately. As if answering her call for help. Her striker engines started to spin at an incredible speed shooting her across the sky like a rocket.
Shirley pushed the Romangan girl. But Just as she done so she felt an excruciating pain run up and down her chest. And the warmth of blood soaking her uniform. 'Just in time' was her last thoughts before she completely blacked out.
The four Watched in shock as the Liberion chest was pierced by the neuroi's beam and blood was thrown into the air.
"SHIRLEY!" Lucchini yelled tears spilling out from the corners of her eyes.
Sanya and Eila immediately flew over to catch the falling Liberion girl.
But Lucchini stayed completely still. The tears still obviously running down her cheeks until she looked up at the neuroi who shot the girl she was the closest to, with a cold emotionless glare, That even made Barkhorn cringe.
"You're going to pay." She whispered in a cold voice. "Im going to make sure there's nothing left of you!"
Well what do you guys think I hope I didn't bore you to death with the neuroi scenes XD Sorry it took a while but I hope you guys enjoy! :D