Ember's POV:
Morning came quickly for me since last night and I woke up with a slight yawn. Stretching out in my bed, I turned my head and looked outside to see the sun was only just now coming up. Pushing the sheets off, I pulled on my workout clothing and went for a morning jog around the base. The air was fresh and crisps and was cold enough that I could see my own breath every time I breathed. I even saw the two Witches that were on patrol touch down on the runway and taxi back into the hanger. Following up the little run, I stretched a bit before moving onto the bases weight room. Not to my surprise, I was quickly joined by Anne and we went on our regular routine. The room was at first, just as cold as the rest of the base, but now it feels like a sweat factory. Taking a swig from my canteen and wiping the sweat off my forehead, we both hit the showers to clean ourselves up and refreshen ourselves for the days work. At breakfast, I was surrounded by new cadets fresh out of training wanting to hear out an old warhorse's tales of her journey through the war and I swear, they listened to every detail of some of my old tales with the 370th and even some with the 501st. By the end of it all, I gathered quite the crowed around me.
"Wait, so you didn't upgrade to the P-51 yet?" One of the new recruits asked me and she looked like she was only about 14-ish.
"I still haven't either."
"But, isn't the P-51 better in almost every category compared to the P-38?"
"Well, yes. But it's not always about the Striker unit, it's about the pilot that uses the Striker that's key... And the P-38 is tied to me in a way that I just can't get rid of it. Hell, the custom Striker I have is even based off the Lightning!" With breakfast ending, Anne approached me as I left the mess hall.
"Say, Ember, how about that duel?"
"Today?"
"Why not? You've only got tomorrow before you have to leave again."
"Well... I was going to go see my mother again today..."
"Oh... Ah, and I've also got to train some of the new nuggets as well!" There's was a little awkward silence between her and I when a a private walked up to me and saluted. Turning to him, I saluted back and he stood at attention.
"You've got a visitor 2nd Lieutenant Vermillion."
"A visitor?"
"Please, follow me." He turned around and I looked at Anne and only shrugged. Following him through the base, we arrived to the visitors area to find my mom talking with my sister and a visitor's tag on her chest.
"Mom? What are you doing here?"
"Can't a mother visit her daughter while she's on base after she hasn't seen her for over two years?" She gave me a pleading look and I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, yeah... But don't you have work?"
"This is my one day off every week so I came down to this base."
"Though what about regulations about civilians on base-"
"The relief effort I'm apart of gives me clearance to enter a base if the commander approves of it. Though can you give me a little tour around the base? I've never been here before. I've only the RAF ones in London."
"Sure. Why not." Turning around I started to take her on the same path Seris did with me showing the dorms, hangers, mess hall, etcetera etcetera when my mom asked me a question.
"Say, Ember, on this little tour... I've been hearing something about a little duel between the visitor and a girl on base?"
"Uh... Yeah... That."
"Ember! When is the duel going to begin!?" Anne stormed up to me clearly annoyed.
"Calm your horses Anne. It will be today... Just need to see what Striker's I can borrow for the fight." She puffed her cheeks.
"Fwine... And who's the visitor?"
"Amanda Vermillion, Ember's mom."
"I thought civilians aren't aloud-"
"I've got permission from the base commander to be here." My mother cut her off quickly and she only nodded her head in compliance.
"Tell me, are there any P-38's here on this base that are in storage?" I asked her and she nodded her head.
"We've got some old relics in storage. But they haven't been run in months."
"Good enough for me. Show me the way!" Marching on, we came to a rather large storage room with multiple boxes of spare parts and a few Striker's under some tarps. Walking over to one and pulling the cover off, I saw it was an old P-40 Kittyhawk and it was a nice Striker, just not the one I'm looking for. Going over to another one, I pulled its' tarp off and was happy to find a P-38-J underneath. Mentally fist pumping, grabbed the two of them and turned around happily. After wading my way through the mess of boxes, I finally got out into the fresh air once more.
"You honestly think you can still beat me with that old Lightning?"
"There's only one way to see." With everyone in tow, I walked towards the hanger and set them down on one of the many tool benches with a wall lined with different tools. Opening up the Striker, my eye twitched slightly as I saw how dirty the insides of the Striker was.
'HOW CAN SOMEONE DO THIS TO SUCH A BEAUTIFUL MACHINE!? ... But I guess this will happen when it's been neglected for such a long time.' I thought.
"Don't worry baby, you'll be flying in tip top shape soon enough." I said silently as I ran my hand down the aluminum plating of one of the Striker booms.
"You even sweet talk your Strikers Ember?" Anne gave me a questioning look as if I was some insane person and I looked back at her.
"The Striker is the life of us Witches... And I guess I'm just that attached to the P-38 heehee..." I chuckled nervously before I went to work pulling part after out to survey how much work I will need to do. Whistling, I stepped back to see look at the large amount of parts that laid before me. "This might take a while..." Stepping back towards it, I went to work cleaning every part and inspecting each and every one of them. The whole time, my mother watched very closely while Anne started to get ready for her training routine today. Ten other Witches started to enter the hanger that must have been Anne's training group since they had an aura to them that was yelling they were completely green and have seen no combat what so ever. Ignoring them, as I worked, I only looked up when I finished assembling one of the Striker legs and the unmistakable rumble of twenty two Merlin engines filled the room. My mother covered her ears at the large noise but I enjoyed the symphony of the engines before they all took off out of the hanger and onto the taxi lane. Anne was the first on off and the rest flew up in pars of two.
"How can you stand such a noise Ember?" My mother questioned me as soon as the drone of the engines left the hanger and I only shrugged.
"Inner mechanic is screaming, '"Hell yes,"' to it all and I've grown accustomed to the noise." Going back to work on finishing the last Striker leg, I finished just as Anne and her group landed again and taxied back on in.
"Take a ten minute break girls and then we're going back up for more training!" She commanded and all of them responded with a, "Yes, ma'am!" before they started to talk with each other. Anne walked up to me as I finished screwing in the last part and closed up the hatch again.
"Are they ready?" Attaching a few devices to the Striker, the lights on a console all light up green and I gave her a thumbs up. She in turn cracked her knuckles and a large grin spread over her face. Turning to the rest of the girls she announced: "All right, listen up! Today, you're going to get a very special aeronautical display, by the Fire Maiden herself!" The girls started to cheer slightly but was silenced as Anne continued. "And after that, there will be a little duel between myself and her so you better take some notes on how we fly!" She turned around in her Striker and gestured to me. "Ember?"
"Give me a second." The girls parted like the red sea as I walked through and my mother followed behind when I placed them down and locked them in the Launcher. Jumping in, my Golden Eagle familiar features came out and some of the girls Ooohhhh'ed and aaaahhhhh'ed when I looked at my mother. "You might want to cover your ears and step back a little." She did so and I started to feed magic into the engines. They roared to life and a large magical circle formed under my feet and everyone had eyes on me. I tilted my head back and listened to hear if there was anything wrong in the engines. Giving it a few revs, I found no faults and I looked back forward. With the Striker released, I started to hover forward past the girl and Anne gave me an intercom for the base. Putting it in my ear and I started to taxi down onto the runway and radioed the control tower.
"Air Control, am I cleared to take off?"
"You're cleared for take off."
"Roger! Ember, taking off!" Gunning the engines and leaning forward slightly, I started down the runway slowly increasing speed.
'Now it's time to break you in after a long time of sitting.' Pulling up, I went into a straight climb, engines roaring and the turbosupercharger whining as I clawed for altitude. It was a cloudless day when I cut my engines. Air speed had decreased rapidly as I swung my legs out from under me. Applying power, I started to descend at a rapid rate before I pulled up hard about 150 meters from the ground. Pulling a high-G barrel roll in both directions without a problem, I banked around and buzzed the little crowed of Witches and my mother at the mouth of the hanger.
"All right, stop showing off and return back to me for the main course." Anne called out after me and I did a mini back flip before landing back down with them. Walking as best as I could in the Striker, I walked over to them when Anne tossed a rather large object at me. Catching it, I identified it s a training BAR painted with the regular orange and white.
"And this will be the start of our duel." Looking at Anne, she also had a BAR and it was leaning against her shoulder with her hand on the end of the butt stock.
"May the better Witch win!" I stuck my hand out and she shook it sealing the deal before we both taxied off onto the run way. We both took off and Anne pulled around and started to fly in the opposite direction.
"Well fly about 500 meters away from the base in each direction before we turn around. Once we pass each other over the base, the duel is on!" Looking back down, I could see a large group of people were starting to come out and watch the skies. Reaching my mark, I got into a hover and turned around.
"You in position?"
"I'm in position. Start accelerating back to base on my mark!" I pulled the charging handle loading a paintball into the chamber as she started her countdown. "Three! Two! One! GO!" The Alison engines roared to life as I started to gain airspeed. The base soon appeared bellow me and I saw the little glint of Anne's Striker in the distance before she passed me. We both pulled hard to get on each other's six o'clock and the Mustang just pulled ever so much better than my Lightning and I had her on my tail.
"Tch." Rolling right, I started to bank hard pulling many G's as I turned hard to the right before I rolled over again and pulled hard to the left. I heard the small pops as Anne tried to fire and the paintballs sailed behind me as I rolled again. Both of our engines were roaring as we pushed harder and harder as I bobbed and weaved to keep her aim off of me. Taking the fight into the vertical, I started a rolling spiral climb straight up and Anne followed. I felt my airspeed decreasing every passing second in this maneuver and we both were going to stall out. We both knew it as well when I nosed over again to gain airspeed. More paintballs sailed past me as Anne opened fire and I rolled over to dive away. Peaking back, I saw that she too had rolled over to follow me in a dive when I started to pull some positive G's into an inverted climb. She took the bait and instead of climbing after me. My vision started to go red as more blood rushed to my head and I rolled over this time getting on Anne's tail. She was hitting the deck hard trying to get away from me and I kept up ever so slightly but I kept my distance since the Mustang could out maneuver me. She was taking me on for a ride of my life as we both dove into the forest around the base. It wasn't exactly the smartest move but it was pushing out piloting skills to the max. Flying in over 750 km/h we waved through the trees of the forest when I drew bead on her. Pulling the trigger, I saw the paintballs fly but hit a tree as she banked quickly to the right avoiding it. It was quickly coming head on and it forced me to roll left and I lost track of Anne when some paintballs splattered on a tree next to me. Looking back, she had all ready pulled around and was on my six again. Cursing lightly I pulled up out of the trees and into the open sky again.
'If I don't do something soon, this fight will be over soon.' I was breathing quite hard now and I guess Anne was no better than me in how much longer we could fight. Swinging my legs from under me, I drastically decreased my airspeed before rolling and continuing the flip to start flying right. With this move, Anne over shot me but she pulled up into a high yo-yo and was on my six again. Estimating my airspeed again, I knew I was slow enough to try something quite risky. Swinging from side to side, I slowly decreased my throttle and Anne started to get closer to me but wasn't firing as I rolled and juke hard around when I got here were I wanted her. Pulling up hard, I swung my legs out from under me and I flipped in mid air gun extended. Bellow me as I went through the half rotation was Anne and she looked up at me surprised.
"Checkmate!" I pulled the trigger in the minuet gap I had and paintballs splattered all over her back and Striker. Flying back up in formation, she gave me a sour look as we landed and taxied our way back to the rather large group of people that had came out to witness the duel. People were cheering as we cut out engines and landed on the ground lightly and Anne only shook her head.
"God damn Ember! I thought I had you back there!" She had a slight grin on her face as she patted me on the back.
"And I admit you nearly had me back there as well. Though this would have been a different story if I had my Firebird." I gave her a grin and she returned a puzzled look.
"Firebird? I thought you had a Lightning."
"Nope! Lockheed gave my Striker a new designation as the P-38-N Firebird."
"Damn, I'm so jelly of you at the moment." She stuck her hand out with a grin. "And good fight."
"You too." I took it and shook it before I was swarmed by girls asking if I could teach them of the maneuvers I pulled and I looked at Anne for help.
"You think you could probably join us in our training? They might even learn a few things with you onboard."
"Give me a minute and I can get back into the sky." Walking over to a Launcher unit, I clamped my Striker down in the launcher and I got out of it before taking a swig of water from a canteen my mother handed to me.
"So this is what you've evolved into becoming Ember?"
"In this line of work, it's either you evolve to the situation or you die."
"Well, you could have put it so it's less grim."
"This is as grim as it can get mother. War is absolute hell but I will fight to the better end and I will come alive out of it." I looked sadly at the girls that were chatting with each other and shook my head.
"Once the orders for them to mobilize to a new base... They're life will change forever once they get into real combat..."
"You think they all will make it once they're in the sky?"
"Most of them might make it but..." My thoughts drifted. "Some of them might not..." I clenched my fist slightly as I jumped back into my Striker and detached it from the launcher. "Well, it's time for me to go up again." Looking at Blaze since she was sitting on the side line the whole time and I saw one extra P-51 laying on it's sides under a cover. "Yo Blaze, grab that P-51 over there and meet me up in the sky. You're going to be my training partner."
"Right!" She ran off and I continued to walk over to Anne. For the next few hours we trained and shown the recruits some combat maneuvers, how to maintain their speed longer, build it up, and gage what maneuver is appropriate at the time. Some of them got the maneuvers immediately while others needed some more time to get a grasp on them. Soon, since we all were quite exhausted, we all landed. My mother said her good bye when we landed saying that she remembered there's some papers she needs to do for tomorrow. It was about mid day and we all went back inside for a lunch consisting of some sandwiches and a nice cold glass of milk and sooner or later boredom consumed me again as I lazed around on a couch in the base's lounge area. I starred at the same point on the ceiling for what seemed like an hour before I cracked.
"Gah... I need something to do..." Rolling off the couch, I started to wonder around the base trying to find something to do when I found myself back into the hanger. Looking around, I only saw a single girl in the hanger who looked like was having a hard time with her Striker unit. Walking over to her, I noted that it was the same girl who was the first to ask for an autograph when I first arrived. "Need any help there?" She jumped slightly and turned around.
"Oh! 2nd Lieutenant!"
"Please, call me Ember."
"R-Right Ember."
"So, what's the problem?"
"Well," she turned around, "it's not the only time I've worked on my Striker but... There's a weird feeling I was having while flying it today."
"Hhmmm..." Any person could tell the gears in my were starting to turn in my head. "Not 100% sure what's going but... Do you mind if I test the Striker?"
"N-No problem! I'd be honored!" Quickly putting the Striker back together, I slid into the Striker and pumped some magic into it. It rumbled to life as I fed magic into it and I started to have a weird feeling as the Striker rumbled. Concentrating on the sound of the engine, I made note on how the RPM's went down slightly in a rhythmic motion. Cutting them and jumping out, I opened up the Striker's magical engine and started to rummage around slightly. "You know what's wrong with it?"
"I have a hunch and..." I reached around and finally got to the magic filter. Pulling it out, I nodded my head. "Found the problem." The engines magic filter swung back and forth slightly in my hand and it was starting to turn pitch black. "This thing you see here is supposed to be completely white or only slightly dirty. At this point your engine performance will start to suffer."
"Though, what does the magic filter have to do with the problem." She asked as I looked for a replacement part in the many boxes in the hanger.
"With the filter black or really dirty like this you'll start having some blockage in the magical ejectors for the engine so you're starving the engines of magic. I could hear the engine fluctuate RPM's so I just guessed this was the problem." Finding the replacement part, I replaced the part and buttoned up the Striker again finishing the job. "And now your Striker should be fixed-" Turning around, I didn't notice that yet another crowd of young Witches had gathered around in the hanger and I sweat dropped as they all asked me to inspect their Strikers.
'Well, you asked for something to do to kill my boredom Ember... Eat your words and do it.' For the next few hours I helped them, teaching them a bit more advanced way of maintaining their Strikers and fixing them in small ways. In the end, we I had basically gone through all the Striker's in the hanger. Hell, even the two night Witches happened to be awake and asked if I could look at their Mosquito Strikers Units. Might I say it's kind of weird how most of it is made out of wood but I'm not questioning it much. Finishing up with the activities and reassembling of the Strikers, all the girls were filthy with grease including myself and we all went down to the showers to clean ourselves off again. Though in this time here on base I felt like I was getting closer to the little Witches on base and it kind of saddened me thinking I will have to leave them tomorrow. I even noticed my sister was getting close to some girls her age as well on our short time here. Finishing up quickly, I left and got dressed before any of the other girls finished up and I ran into Seris at the exit of the showers. She was leaning up against the entrance and only shook her head.
"God damn Ember, you're befriending the nuggets better than how both Anne and I did when they first arrived." I chuckled lightly at her remark.
"Befriending people I guess is one of my natural talents. I made good friend with both Anne and yourself... Though you've also changed."
"How so?"
"You don't seem as uptight leading a group as you used to." She nodded her head slightly.
"I had a good teacher when we left from basic and advanced training."
"Though when did you start calling the newbies 'nuggets'?" I asked her and she chuckled.
"That's a catch phrase that stuck after being trained under Captain Jane Bartlett. An old Witch who taught both Anne, myself, and some more Witches our advanced training once we got to the front lines."
"And a good teacher she must have been." The day moved on to dinner in half an hour later and it was a standard meal of some sandwiches. But by now both Blaze and I were starting to miss Yoshika's godly cooking and we both were kind of itching to get back to base to eat more of her food. Hell, even my mouth started to water just from the thought of some of her Fuso dishes. Rolling into my bed sheets, I started to plan out the rest of the day for tomorrow for what we should do for the rest of the time here in London. Though as much as I don't want to admit it... I don't like the idea of behind this far behind friendly lines while there's still a very large Neuroi presence. Britannia is the last line of defense and I want to get back into the action as fast as I can... But I do guess some peace and quite is needed for my line of work...My thoughts drifted to the nuggets that are here and I frowned a bit.
'Those kids won't get a proper childhood... No, when the Neuroi arrived, no Witch would have a normal childhood... I need to end this war fast so the next few generation of children will live in a world without fear of the Neuroi... Though I guess without the Neuroi, I wouldn't have met all my friends either... A double edges sword I guess.' Rolling over onto my side, I scowled slightly as another thought came back to me. I knew Eila's tarot cards weren't always correct... But they were once in a while. And the one I picked up still was bothering me. 'I would make friends with one of my enemies... Why am I still worried on this? I would never make friends to the Neuroi!' I kept on debating on the subject for most of the night before my tiredness took over and I feel asleep.
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