For the record: if you're wondering why Helma sometimes gets her w's and th's right and sometimes doesn't, I'm trying to represent her learning English-she gets them right sometimes, but not always. I feel that's more interesting and believable than her messing up ALL the time.

Title means "The Practicing" in German by the way.

Chapter 3: Das Üben

I met Helma Lennartz when almost no one else was at the base. A recent surprise Neuroi appearance in Orussia resulted in the 501st being pulled over there to assist. It would take about 2 days. Of course, since I didn't have a Striker and wasn't really a part of the 501 at all, I just stayed on-base. The only people besides me were Charlotte, Helma, Holly, and the various mechanics.

This meant that I was stuck enduring Helma's onslaught practically alone. It began as soon as she came down, at around noon, the sun broiling the airstrip. Probably to show off her skills, she flew the last few miles herself and came skidding down onto the massive airstrip, clearly built for actual planes, her face sullen and not looking the slightest pleased...though it was somewhat hard to take her seriously, given that she was smaller than me. On her back was a massive box, far, far larger than her. Her magic power must've been quite impressive.

Her Striker Unit was rather unique too. Unlike nearly every single that I had seen, hers had no propellers of any kind. It was sleek, and long, the bottom colored gray that faded into a greenish-beige at the top. At the side of each individual unit, a small wing with a tube projected outwards. This is what marked it as a Jet Striker, or Etherjet. They had been recently made in Karlsland and could offer much higher speeds than normal propeller SU's. The only problem was that the tech was a little ripe, having been simply downscaled from actual jet fighters, themselves a new technology. In addition, the power requirements were so immense that it was difficult to actually use one unless you had a ton of natural power. My family, the Princetons, did have such power...though it wasn't like I deserved it.

Words from my mother flashed in my head. "Just because you've for all that power doesn't mean that you're a better Witch. Without controlling it you're just a wild and dangerous loose cannon." She had told Holly that a few years ago. I sighed. Holly was so much better at this than I was.

Helma quickly jumped from her SU, her beautiful blond hair lighting up in the sky and contrasting well with the deep black of her cat familiar's ears and tail. Barefoot but barely affected by the heat of the sun searing down on the strip, she walked over to me, inside the massive hanger, where it was cool and shaded. I could feel the rage just emanating from her body like some kind of roaring plane engine spitting out enough heat to distort the air. Instinctively I recoiled back, but I knew I couldn't escape.

When she went inside the hanger, now only a few feet from me, she sighed deeply and stared me straight in the eyes, her own feeling like needles piercing into my soul. "Ashton Princeton, yes?" Her accent was understandable, but very thick. She clearly had been learning Britannian for only a few years. Minna, Gertrud, and Erica sounded almost like natives in comparison.

I nodded. "It's...Aston. As-ton." I decided to try helping her get my name right.

Her mouth twisted into a frown, but she was also blushing like I had hit a nerve. "I...I speak Britannian very vell, thank you very much!" She then pulled out a small file. "Anyvay, Ashton Princeton, I assume you know who I am."

"Yes, you're Helma Lennartz and three days ago you nearly made me go death by means of a telephone."

"Of course I did!" She snorted in indignant anger. "You are truly some-zing else! A perverted man, infiltrating us Strike Vitches. And you still get to use an Etherjet striker! Zis is practically a scandal!"

"It's...not my fault my family tends to have lots of power." I meepishly replied, twirling my blond hair in my fingers.

"Oh vell. Here." She threw the gigantic box at me. It was nearly as big as me and incredibly thick, made of almost impenetrable silver metal. It landed with a gigantic thud, threatening to crack the earth itself open, at my feet. I knelt down and flipped open a latch on it, heaving the heavy lid open with all of my strength. The sheer size of the thing was ridiculous.

Inside, laid two Jet Strikers, polished and carefully arranged inside metal moldings. They were slightly different in design than Helma's. Rather than placing the jets on two wings projecting out, the jets were located directly on the sides of the units, looking like circles welded to much larger circles. Then wings projected out of them. They were painted in a swirling pattern, kind of like, and I really have no other way to describe this, a toilet paper roll, alternating between thick bangs of a light blue, almost gray-ish, and a darker blue.

On a small piece of paper next to them, words had been written: "CONFIDENTIAL GLO E.28 [AN: Gloster E.28, the first working jet fighter the British made and the first Allied Jet in general, but it never went past testing] DOWNTUNED"

My Striker Unit. Mine and only mine. The realization hit like a brick. This was a several-hundred thousand pound device, designed exclusively for me. No one else would ever use it. I was now part of a tiny elite, but was I worthy of being a part of them? I didn't feel worthy. What should have been a feeling of great joy and pride was instead a feeling of having cheated the system, the guilt having finally caught up.

Helma must have noticed this. "Vat za hell are you moping about? You have your own Striker Unit now! Surely even someone like you should be happy now!"

"I know..." I got up and walked away from the E.28. "But I don't feel like I deserve it. Helma, you probably hate me, right?"

She examined me with her eyes a little bit and sighed. "You have been reading me wrong. I do not hate you. I merely zink zat you are simply incapable of understanding vat kind of life a Strike Vitch has. Ve are soldiers. You zink zis is some kind of game vere you can just peep on girls all day long, and satisfy your sick desires to vear women's clothing. I know you have potential. Your father was Jackson Princeton, vas he not?"

I nodded. My father was a pilot in the years before the Neuroi had hit. He was mostly unknown outside of the military circles, but all those in the forces no matter what country they came from knew his name and his deeds. I had never paid much attention to them, though. "Yeah, what of it?"

"Your father vorked hard and vas impeccable. Zat might by why I am so angry at you. You squander ze skills your father surely passed on!"

I could only nod in shame, like a child in trouble who had to finally admit his wrongdoing. "Well, I never thought that it would matter...I guess, "

"It does now. Get your units out." She pointed to the box. I shrugged and decided that there was nothing else to do. She was right. Maybe I was making my family look like a bunch of idiots. In reality, I had zero interest in actually being in the sky when I joined the Strike Witches. I was only thinking about perving on girls. But now I had been dragged into it through my own carelessness...perhaps that was a good thing in disguise though.

Man, I was a fucking idiot.

/

The "Downtuned" mark inside the E.28's case apparently indicated that the engines only output roughly half their power. Helma explained that this was so I could learn the basics of flying before going full-speed.

"Why not just give me a normal propeller to learn the ropes then? It's about as slow as one when downtuned like this." I asked her as we pulled the heavy machinery out of the box. The individual jets were incredibly heavy, weighing probably 200 pounds each. Me and Helma were...not exactly the stronger people around, and thus we just had to drag them slowly out to the edges of the hanger, where small stations for laying SU's up were set, allowing a Witch to quickly jump into them in the time of a sudden deployment. It was very slow and very drudging. Even in the cool hanger we were drenched in sweat by the time we were done.

"Oof...ze one problem mit these Etherjets...they are heavy compared to normal propeller ones for now..." Helma groaned when we finished, lying against the wall, her brow covered in glistening sweat. I couldn't help but notice how cute she looked. Then again, I was panting and breathing heavily too, the sweat on my head making my hair feel sticky and uncomfortable.

"How can I possibly fly with this thing on my legs?" I asked in bewilderment.

"Are you stupid?! Your magic power, dummkopf! It vill make ze weight seem like nothing. How did you not know zat!?" She stared at me, incredulous. "You might be a lost cause..."

"Augh, sorry, it's just...oh man, screw it, maybe I am."

The first thing she had me do was get into the unit itself just to test the fit. I had to take off my socks and shoes, all while hearing Helma comment on how my legs were more feminine than hers, until I was wearing nothing more than white panties and a beige combat shirt.

"My, my, it's is zat small..." Helma commented out of nowhere when I finished. I looked around in confusion before realizing that she was commenting on my manhood. I couldn't see it, but I could feel my face temperature rising by several degrees, my hands flying to my crotch in embarrassment. My pride, as small it was, shattered like my window once had during a childhood baseball-game-gone-awry.

I had to defend my manhood, my honor. Of course, Helma made it easy with her un-voluptous figure. "You goddamn prostitot! You don't have much to say when you lack in the chest area that much!" It worked; Helma immediately threw her hands to her chest in shame and blushed like she had been splashed with red paint, her cheeks so red they seemed like they would go up in flames. I smiled in victory, almost able to smell the metaphorical smoke coming from her burning cheeks. Yeah, I wasn't totally a complete and utter pushover.

"You sick lech! O-Of course you would take note of something like that!" She kicked me in the face with her bare foot, something I most certainly appreciated.

"Hah, hah!" I replied, my eyes like stars and my nose bleeding slightly. For better or for worse, I had entered full-on Pervert Mode. "Don't worry, Helma...I like girls petite!"

For that, I received a full-on kick to the nose, but Helma was so small that I barely moved from it. Still angry, she kicked me again in the chest with all of her might, except this time she was so mad that her familiar manifested, black cat ears and a tail popping out of her head and butt. This meant that when she hit me, I was slammed straight in the chest like a lorry had rammed into me. The air in my lungs rushed out and the impact sent me flying several feet. I spent a second flying weightlessly through the air before slamming down onto the ground with a painful thud, gasping for breath and skidding several more feet.

"That's vat you-Ashton! I...I didn't intend to hit you zat hard."

"It's...HAGH...fine..hack..." I replied, only able to stare at the unsympathetic metal ceiling.

After that little incident, we proceeded. I star above the E.28 and proceeded to slide in, gripping my chest slightly as the kick still had done a number. It was an easier process than I expected. My legs slid in without any difficulty, the inside feeling padded to ease comfort. My feet came to rest at the bottom and locked into place. The entire assembly reached up far past my knees, like all of the other SU's I had seen Witches wearing. They ended right below my hip. They didn't feel totally uncomfortable, with that padding on the inside, but they didn't seem to let my legs breathe much, and I could feel heat growing up inside of them.

Looking back on it, that should have been a pivotal moment in my life. No other man had worn a Striker Unit before. But like before, I didn't feel elated or prideful. I didn't really feel anything. I cursed myself for not treating the situation with the respect it ought to have. Then again, maybe treating things with a cool head was a good thing for a pilot.

"How do zey feel?" Helma asked.

"Um..." I tried to put it into words. "They're...tight. And kinda hot. But not totally awkward. I was expecting something much more utilitarian."

"Of course. Striker Units must be vorn for long periods of time, and are highly advanced tech. It is no doubt then, that they are designed to excel in all categories. Treat it vell. Perhaps you are not totally a lost cause." She reached down close to my head. Of course, my puerile mind instantly went in a perverted direction as she came close to my face and held my head in one of her hands. But my logical mind also told me "There's no way her opinion of you changed that quickly." Nonetheless, I felt my forehead arm up as she placed something metal in my ear. It was round and frigid. "Zere, it's a radio communicator for when we're in the air...what did you zink I vas going to do?" She asked me in confusion when she saw my red-hot forehead. "...Sicko."

I sighed in disappointment that she wasn't going to kiss me or speak into my ears with her lovely voice (I'd say the accent made it even cuter, dammit!). Then I parsed the rest of her statement. My blood quickly turned to ice. It was easy to ignore things when they weren't about to happen. Thus, the thought that I was going to be flying at well over 300MPH over the sea like this had never really bounced around in my mind. Until now. Sweat began to break out over my face, as if it hadn't already shown up enough. My eyes were twitching, their erratic motion reflected in my vision swimming. Even things close by were hard to make out. To add fuel to the fire, my stomach began to roar in upset, twisting into knots, a nauseous feeling roaring up. I covered my mouth in response, my hands shaking like a bridge about to break.

Helma noticed this and immediately gripped my shoulders. "Aston, vat is wrong!?" She felt my forehead and quickly gripped me and pulled me from the SU. Having not activated my familiar yet, I wasn't linked with it and thus slid out quickly. "You are getting nerves, yes?"

I nodded, not wanting to say anything. My stomach felt like it was about to twist itself into knots, the nausea spreading through me like an awful plague, making even speaking a trying task. My hands stayed firm on my mouth.

"Of course. It happens to all new pilots. Happened even to me, would you believe it? On my first flight, I was all 'Ich kann nicht fliegen, ich werde sterben!' ["I cannot fly, I will die!"]. But it goes away if you do it. I'll let you rest for a few minutes, ja?"

I raised my hand to object. My stomach still felt terrible, my head was burning, my vision swimming, and my forehead drenched in sweat, but I still felt some deep urge inside me to continue. Maybe it was my father's genes finally coursing through. I was the son of a pilot. "Helma Lennartz..." Lowering my hands, I forced myself to speak some words, now overcoming the nausea with sheer willpower. "This is not how you are from what I've heard. You run everyone into the dirt with your nagging and expect superhuman results from everyone. It's not like you to give someone some time to rest."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Zere's a difference between expecting top-notch results and making a sick and nervous person fly for ze first time." A wicked smile formed on her lips. "But Aston, if you zink zat I am growing soft, or that I am falling for you and treating you nice, zen you can abandon those hopes instantly. Rest assured, I am going to push you to your limits. In my eyes, you are my charge, but you also a sick pervert and a pathetic rookie. In Karlsland, zey expect superhuman results from every mission. I do not know vat you tea-drinking Brits expect from your soldiers, but under my watch, you VILL do Karlsland-tier results or you VILL feel my wrath. You are very unlucky, ja? Since I am ze first and currently-only Jet Striker Witch in ze world, you are training under me instead of a fellow Britannian."

I sighed, the nausea finally leaving my body and my vision starting to straighten. "I'm gonna be miserable under you, aren't I?"

"Yes." She smiled. "Get ready for hell, boy. You know, you almost feel like you are starting to gain some actual manliness. If you are crazy enough to try courting me, you'll need to be more than just impressive."

/

I quickly entered the E.28 again. This time, I breathed in and out slowly to control my emotions and heartbeart. "I...I think we can continue."

"Alright...vat is your familiar, for ze matter? I don't know."

"It's...the gray wolf." A rather aggressive familiar for me, but us Witches usually didn't pick our familiars. They simply came to us.

"Hasn't it been extinct in Britannia for ze past 400 years?"

"Yeah, but mine's one of the Liberian ones..."

"...Very well. I hope zat you at least know how to summon your familiar."

"Of course!" I scoffed at her doubts and set to work at it. Summoning one's familiar was not a particularly difficult task-it was one of the first any witch learned to do that was magic-related. Mostly you just thought of your familiar, focused your power, and let it rip. I did as such, letting the magic course through me, my eyes closed in concentration. Soon two small gray and fluffy ears sprouted on top of my head. Unlike Helma's very smooth and small cat ears, my ears were very lupine, gray and filled with white fluff. While I was concentrating, I all of a sudden felt Helma playing with my ears, sending a ticklish sensation rippling over my body. I tried to remain focused, but eventually I gave in as she felt and tickled the ears, losing my connection to the gray wolf and sending the ears back in. In anger I swung around and barked at her. "Hey, what the hell was that for?"

She was blushing but also giggling a little. "I'm sorry...zey were just so cute and fluffy..."

"Man, you may be a hardass but you're still a kid in the end." Then again, I didn't have much to say. I was a kid too.

Having gotten through that little incident, I reconnected to the gray wolf. After the ears came the tail, long and bushy like a real wolf's. As soon as it came out, it instantly became an extension of me, and I found it easy to manipulate it like it another limb. I quickly curled it to the front and held it in my hands, because I sure wasn't letting Helma feel it up.

With the process complete, I had fully connected to my latent magical power. It was a subtle feeling-even a strong Witch like me didn't feel much-but deep down, you could feel the power coursing through your veins like some kind of drug. Inside my body it was swirling around, just waiting to be exploited for something.

Now that I was done, I turned to Helma. "Done, are you? Your Striker should automatically sense your power and begin to power on."

She was right. In a few seconds we heard the E.28's engines turning on, their blades whirring to life at first slowly, but quickly increasing before they stopped abruptly. Did they break already?! Before I could panic though, Helma knocked me in the head a little. "Relax, it vas just testing itself before turning on. Now you should be able to adjust the power level as much as you want."

/

Now fully connected to the E.28, it was much lighter than before. I found myself able to move my legs with a surprising lack of effort. Helma led me outside, her Messerschmitt on her legs as well. Walking in a Striker Unit was basically impossible, so we just used this to practice slowly moving in the air. For someone who had never used them, SU's were...odd to use. You didn't have any kind of controls, you merely just thought of what you wanted to do and you did it. Once outside, Helma immediately ascended above the airstrip and beckoned for me to continue with the communicator.

I was hesitant but then she yelled "GO ALREADY!" in my ear so loud I flew up just to not have my ears destroyed. There was very little wind, so I ascended with almost no problems. Up above the air was slightly chilly, but Helma said that I was simply gonna have to deal with it. In any case, I had ascended and not managed to kill myself. That alone made me swell with pride and confidence.

Then I looked down. We were barely in the sky, but even so, looking down and realizing that I was floating in the air took a number on me. The airstrip, once an impossibly gigantic slab of asphalt, now was a little strip of gray paper pasted onto the canvas that was the earth. Then I looked around us. The amount of land we could see was huge. The rolling verdant hills of Britannia seemed to stretch for miles and miles, barely any roads, even dirt ones, breaking them up. I saw forests and rivers and farm plots and so many hills, stretching like a beautiful painting. On the other side laid the Atlantic Ocean, an endless plane of rolling and soothing blue, the sun lying high in the sky above. It was a beautiful shot, like something from the brush of an artist, but the sheer sensory overload fried my senses. My stomach began to twist into tortuous knots again, and I quickly flew close to Helma and held onto her close like she was my mother. She hastily threw me off for that.

"Look, you vill have to get used to flying alone! It's not so bad once you get used to it."

"But..." I decided to throw all my manliness aside. "I'm...scared..." The words were barely audible.

"Don't be! Now we must fly over the countryside." She leaned forwards to prep herself, her Messerschmitt roaring much louder than mine. "You won't be able to catch me, but at least follow!" Then she burst off, with such intense speed I though the shockwave would rip me to shreds. The blast of air alone slammed into me like a wall, nearly knocking the wind out of me. I saw her blasting away from me, getting smaller and smaller.

Then it occurred to me that I was supposed to be flying after her. A sense of panic came over my head and I quickly tried to follow her path, but I leaned in too far, shooting down diagonally towards the cliffs of the base. Even detuned, the sheer speed of my Striker was overwhelming-the wind lashed at my face, howling in my ears, and my vision was blurred from the speeds I was achieving. I quickly realized my mistake and pulled upwards, dodging the cliffs, thankfully, scanning the sky as I searched for Helma's trail. I saw it, a thin white line flowing through the air, and tried to follow.

"Vat happened!? Where are you!?" She buzzed in my ear.

"Uh, sorry!" I replied as I went full-blast, ascending to reach her height. "I freaked out and nearly hit the cliffs!"

We spent the next hour flying around the base. I was, to put it lightly, terrible. Helma, even at nearly mach 1, was effortlessly carving beautiful lines into the sky, sometimes so bored letting me follow her that she would tell me to wait while she did some impressive maneuver like fly close to the hills. I, on the other hand, spent half the time catching my breath, flinching from the onslaught of the air, or accidentally hurtling myself towards the ground. I was only going half-speed, and yet it felt like I was completely out of control. The velocity turned the ground into a blur, the wind howling into my ears, the sensory overload sending me into a dive at times.

By the end, when we landed on the airstrip, I was pale as a sheet and covered in sweat. The previous hour felt like it had taken more than a day. I tried to think back and think about it, but it was all rushed, jumbled together, like my brain itself had barely been able to keep up. My eyes ached and twitched, my stomach was a complete mess, my ears still rang with the screams of the wind, and my skin all over felt raw from the air rushing over it.

"So?" Helma replied, jumping out of her Striker Unit. "Zat vas just a warm-up-eh?" She looked back at me, getting her first good look at me since we started flying. I was a wreck. Both inside and outside. When we got into the hanger and left our Strikers, I couldn't handle it anymore.

That had been terrible. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a Strike Witch, even with a pilot father. I could feel tears forming in my blood-shot eyes, heavily appreciative of the soothing dampness. "That...was awful. You're just so much better than me and we're the same age...sniff."

"Vell, it's merely zat I entered the military at an even younger age...Ashton, ze first time is always bad."

"I don't know, then that was extra-bad I guess..." A few of the tears fell onto the searing asphalt. "Dammit...I can't do fucking anything right...no wonder all the other Witches treat me like shit!" I slammed my fist into the wall, ignoring the searing pain that resulted. "I'm a goddamn pervert idiot, and I can't even do basic stuff correctly. I'm dead weight!" Now I slammed my head into the wall, once again ignoring the horrible pain that bursted through it, tears falling from my eyes like a waterfall. I was just some goddamn city-boy. I had no skills when it came to being a witch. I couldn't fire a gun and I certainly couldn't fly a Striker Unit. "Maybe I should just quit. Go back home, go to college, and live my life peacefully."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Helma shake her head. "I've never seen a rookie get this emotional over her...their first flight."

Maybe I was a super-emotional jackass. But I felt like I had way more pressure on me to perform well. I was possibly the first male Strike Witch and my dad was a semi-famous pilot for real airplanes. "I'm just a crazy overly-emotional drama queen, that's it." The tears stopped flowing. "Man, I'm going to my room."

I left Helma there, honestly somewhat embarrassed about freaking out like that. I really did have a tendency to just break down and cry at the slightest shit. My little sister was made of sterner stuff than me. I walked through the halls of the base alone, as Charlotte and Holly appeared to be in their rooms. Once I reached my own, I half-heartedly threw open the door, closed the blinds, and strolled over to the bed, collapsing into it.

Unfortunately I couldn't mope because Helma came to my room with a bunch of luggage in her hands. "What do you want?" I gruffly replied as she came in like she owned the place.

"Mein Gott, you are ze most emotionally fragile person I have ever met! Your first flight was awful, so vat! Mine vas! Erica's vas! Everyone's is! Do you expect to be an ace on your first flight!? If you do, zen perhaps you really should resign!" Her words hit me really hard, and I rolled over on the bed so I didn't have to look at her. "And if you really must know, I vill be living in this room for now!"

I nearly jumped into the ceiling from surprise. "WHAT!?" My heart began to race incredibly fast. Helma was my favorite witch, after all, and now I could be bunking with her? Perhaps this day hasn't been completely terrible after all. "YES!"

She scowled at my enthusiasm. "You are not going to do any lecherous vile I am here, are you?"

"Perhaps..." I replied, my voice steamy and...well, lecherous. I was drooling slightly and didn't even care to hide it. "I'll have you know...you're my favorite witch."

"I'm so honored." She replied in a deadpan tone, setting her stuff down. "If you like me that much, at least treat me decently."

"I will, I promise!" I pumped a fist into the air and jumped onto my bed, my spirits higher. Now that I was with my favorite witch, I was feeling much better. "But can I ask you something?"

"Vat?" She replied, taking her socks off sensually. At least for me.

"I...don't feel the greatest right now..." What I really wanted was a hug. Pathetic, I know. But I rarely had female contact and my high spirits were still being weighed down from the earlier failure at flying. "Can...I..." I started to blush tremendously and held my head down low. "...get a hug?"

She said nothing for a few seconds before laughing riotously in that stiff Karlsland way. "HAHAHAHA! You really are a pathetic little boy, aren't you?" She giggled at my pitiful request, making me instantly feel ashamed at ever having asked.

"I...shouldn't have asked, I guess."

"No, it is fine." Helma continued to giggle as she strolled over to my bed and proceeded to squeeze me tight. I felt the warm warmth of her body on mine, so close due to her small bust, our similar heights resulting in our faces being right in front of each other. We could've kissed right then and there, but of course our relationship was nowhere near that level. Nonetheless, I was able to stare in her mesmerizing blue eyes, eyes blue much like the ocean I had seen earlier. I wanted to fall into them. I wanted to look into them forever.

She was also unintentionally grinding against my crotch, which had the usual effects.

But Helma didn't notice and began to speak, her body still tightly wrapped around mine. "Ashton Princeton. You are a pervert, idiot, rather pathetic little boy, and a complete rookie at flying. I should hate you, for making me come all ze way over here to teach a loser like you. And I kind of still do. But vile you may be all of zose things, you are also cute as a button. You should remember zat. And maybe, if you really vant it, you could become a good Strike Vitch."

Then she punched me in the head so I nearly fell unconscious right then and there.

"And stop getting an erection everytime a girl comes vithin three feet of you, how much of a sexless pervert are you!?"

"I can't control my natural male instincts! Don't rub your crotch against mine!"

/

Why is my longest chapter for any story in about a year THIS? Seriously, what the fuck.