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Legendary Witches 3: Cross World Battle
Chapter 34: The Storm (Part 2)
-April 28th, 1953-
"Alea iacta est! Ad victoriam! (The die has been cast. To victory!)"
On all sides of the hive, the witches erupted into battle against the massive force of Neuroi. Waves of magic and beams of energy crisscrossed through the air.
Each Neuroi Super carrier began launching hundreds of drones at a time. It was almost as if the hive was a storm cloud and the beams were rain.
The witches' efforts were great. Many of them swatted the beams aside as they broke through the enemies' ranks.
On the north side of the base, the 516th and the Fuso Contingent grouped up, including their members that were part of the fort teams. Ren, Aero, and Aira began attacking the oversized Neuroi with their Blackfire and Darkwind combo.
Yuko used her space magic spell, Phase, to directly attack Neuroi cores. Although her Phase spell was a far cry of Shadow's magic, she could still make herself intangible for about five minutes at a time. However, Phase did not make her invisible or undetectable. When attacking, she only made her sword tangible long enough to slice apart her target's core.
"Unyou!" Ayaka and Katsu found themselves teaming up against the larger Neuroi, using their Unyou techniques from opposite sides for maximum damage.
The Trio of the Fuso Sea - Tomoko Anabuki, Takeko Katou, and Keiko Katou - teamed up to quickly take down scores of Neuroi to give their teammates a better shot at destroying the colossal Neuroi.
Yoshiko Nishizawa teamed up with her descendants, Nami and Yori, and targeted the Super Large types with multiple cores for the same reason that the Fuso Sea Trio chose to focus on the smaller Neuroi.
The Fuso Contingent Commander, Fumika Kitagou, coordinated with the remaining Fuso Contingent, 516th B Team, and 516th C Team members so that Zen, the 516th Head Commander, could fight on his own.
While Ayaka and Katsu were in the middle of taking down a colossal Neuroi, they found themselves under attack by a group of five powerful humanoid Neuroi.
"Katsu, leave them to me! You keep at the colossal!" Ayaka ordered.
"But I need a partner to perform the combination Unyou techniques!" Katsu argued. "We're the only two that are good enough to do it!"
"I think there's one more," Ayaka said with a wink.
Hearing that, a member of the 516th C Team split off and flew up toward the two. "Aneue! (Older Sister!) I can help!"
"Kayo?" Katsu said. "You haven't trained enough to pull off these advanced Unyou techniques."
"But I have! Grandma Ayaka has been teaching me!"
Katsu glanced at Ayaka, who had just dodged a Neuroi beam from one of the humanoid types.
"She can do it," Ayaka said firmly. "You're sisters! You can do it together!"
Katsu smiled and said, "Thanks."
Ayaka nodded and took off toward the incoming group of humanoid Neuroi while Katsu and Kayo traded confident glances.
Before they could discuss strategy, the colossal Neuroi launched a massive energy beam at them. Being too strong for a normal shield, Katsu chose a different defensive method.
"Unyou!" she shouted as she hit the beam with the technique. She split the beam in several pieces, each which destroyed several smaller Neuroi before ultimately being negated by the shields of other witches fighting in the nearby area. Katsu looked to Kayo. "Do you know the flanking version of Unyou?"
"Yes."
"Okay. I'll take the other side, you launch yours from this side," Katsu said.
Kayo nodded.
Katsu flew to the other side, dodging beams as she went, but as she prepared to launch the flanking attack with Kayo, she was hit in the back with a Neuroi beam. The beam tore through her Magic Aura, but was greatly diminished so it only burned a circle into the skin of her back.
"Reppuzan!" she shouted as she turned around and quickly discharged a blast of magic at the source of the beam that had hit her. It was a relatively small Neuroi, which surprised her. Her attack destroyed it, but left her wondering. "A Neuroi that small could penetrate my defense?"
"Aneue!" Kayo called over the radio. "I'm ready!"
Katsu dismissed the idea and returned to her priority. "I'm ready, too. On three. One... Two..."
"Unyou!" the two shouted in unison. Their attacks penetrated deep inside the Neuroi and met in the center. The flanking attack hit the core and shattered it in an instant.
The Neuroi, as well as the several hundred drones it had released, all shattered at once.
Several of their teammates were suddenly freed up and could move on to other targets.
Ayaka finished up with the humanoid Neuroi shortly after and rejoined Katsu and Kayo. "Let's try three person techniques now."
Katsu and Kayo shared confident glances again and agreed, "Yeah!"
Shortly after Ayaka, Katsu, and Kayo teamed up, Mio dropped in on the Fusojin ruled battlefield. She was quickly greeted by her long standing friend, Junko Takei. Soon after Mio and Junko began to fight side by side, they were joined by another witch, Yoshiko Nishizawa, who was flanked by 516th C Team Battle Commander Nami Nishizawa and 516th C Team Member Yori Nishizawa.
"Mio! Junko!" Yoshiko called out as she approached her friends. "We should all fight together! I want to show these two how real veterans do it!"
"Don't forget that I've already fought Nami," Mio said. "She already knows how I fight."
"Yeah, but you've gotten a lot stronger since then! Come on, Mio, please!" Yoshiko clasped her hands together and bowed to Mio.
"Enough of that, Yoshiko, I won't have someone of your caliber begging," Mio said with a sigh.
"Hehe!" she giggled while sporting the victory sign.
Nami shared a glance with Yori and said, "Our great grandmother, huh?"
Yori laughed dryly.
"Anyway, here we go!" Yoshiko cheered as she led the group into the fray, instantly activating her ultimate magic aura and launching an enormous Reppuzan through a colossal Neuroi. She managed to hit the core and destroy it in one shot.
"How the..." Yori gasped. Nami was speechless.
"You don't see that every day," Junko calmly commented.
"Hell, even I'm impressed," Mio admitted. "You sure destroyed that one quick, Yoshiko."
Yoshiko gave them a thumbs up and proudly said, "After all, I'm the strongest!"
Meanwhile, the 511th, assisted by a few members of the 501st, began their battle on the southwest side of the hive. They were still split into their three individual groups, taking three separate points, but each group had their respective commanders back.
Bell, being the Head Commander, had to decide between the three groups, but ultimately decided to go join the Karlslanders so she could tag team with Erica and Ursula. Minna and Trude grouped up with them as well.
Valterri, Lion, and Yusu took command of their units. Valterri's group was assisted by Sanya and Eila, Lion's group was assisted by Lucchini and Shirley, and Yusu's group was assisted by Yoshika, Lynne, and Perrine.
Perrine and Louise teamed up again, just as they were while inside the fort only minutes earlier. Together, they launched a storm of lightning bolts.
As more and more Neuroi fell to their offensive, Perrine took to her own for a moment and pushed her aura to the ultimate level to augment her magic ability. "First, I have Tonnerre (Thunder), my base level magic spell. Then I have Plusieurs Tonnerre (More Thunder), my ultimate level magic spell. And now I have this! Orage! (Thunderstorm!)" Perrine shot a single bolt of lightning upward toward the hive, however it stopped and formed a ball before hitting the clouds. From that single point, Perrine launched several hundred bolts of lightning down upon the Neuroi, razing everything from small Neuroi to super large Neuroi. She even did some major damage to a colossal Neuroi, enough that most of its cores were destroyed, leaving Louise to finish it off with a lightning empowered rapier attack.
"Perrine, when did you learn that?!" Yoshika asked, surprised and impressed by Perrine's display of power.
"Just... Recently..." Perrine said between breaths. She caught her breath before continuing. "I used my Tonnerre with the Ultimate Magic Aura. That's what happened."
"Oh, amazing!"
I'm not the only one with a surprise, Yoshika, Perrine thought with a smile. "Hey, get back to fighting! We have to win!"
Yoshika nodded and launched a Reppuzan toward the nearest Neuroi she could find.
Lynne took the opportunity to support Yoshika. She hated to admit it, but she was somewhat upset for not being able to help Yoshika as much as she wanted throughout the past few weeks, so she was determined to make up for it.
Yoshika dove straight in toward one of the massive Neuroi super carriers, dodging and deflecting beams as necessary. Before she could attack, several dragon shaped Neuroi fired their breath beams at her.
"Reppuzan!" Yoshika bisected one with a rainbow colored Reppuzan, but before she could move toward the rest, they shattered into fragments. Yoshika barely was able to see that each one had been shot simultaneously. "Lynne?"
"I'm here, Yoshika!" Lynne called to her.
"What was that? I've never seen you shoot a rifle that fast before."
"I only shot once. With my Ballistic Magic Aura at the ultimate level, I can augment my Ultimate Spell. Do you remember the MIRV missiles from the alternate future?"
"Did you-?"
"That's basically what I did with the Shockwave round just now. I used my magic to duplicate it the instant it left the barrel and guided each shot to those Neuroi. I call it "Ballistic Surge"."
"Wow, Lynne! That's amazing!"
"You've been getting so much stronger. I have to keep up somehow!"
Yoshika smiled at Lynne, a gesture Lynne could only see through the scope on her Shockwave Rifle due to the distance between them.
Knowing that she has more than capable support, Yoshika began her assault on the colossal Neuroi. She sliced it apart in several places, but failed to hit the core. Out of frustration, she condensed an orb of rainbow magic and threw it into the Neuroi before it could regenerate. The orb exploded, and the Neuroi soon shattered, the core having been hit by the explosion.
"That was amazing, Yoshika!" Lynne cheered.
Yoshika turned toward Lynne and gave her the victory sign before moving on. Just as she turned around, a streak of fire zoomed in front of her, burning every Neuroi in its path, soon followed by a streak of ice that froze them over.
"That's the Akiyama sisters for you," Yoshika commented.
Every Neuroi that got burned and frozen shattered soon after. Yoshika watched as the two elemental witches teamed up on a super large dragon type Neuroi and picked it apart as if it were nothing.
Oh right, they have two magic types. Mei has Mio's Magic Eye and Kiyoko has Takeko's Area Analysis. Yoshika paused for a moment in thought, then it hit her. She let out a dull face as she realized it. I'm a dunce...
"Seinarugan!" Yoshika shouted. "Ugh... I get complete mastery, then I go and forget to use the one thing I already fully mastered..."
"Gaia, bow mode, please."
"Of course."
Gaia transformed into a bow whilst in Yoshika's hand. Using her eyes to pinpoint the cores within the colossal Neuroi, she set to work.
"Sacred Arrow!" She launched three rainbow arrows at once toward a single colossal Neuroi that looked nearly identical to an aircraft carrier. One arrow hit at the Neuroi's bow, the other at the Neuroi's center, and the last at the stern. Each arrow exploded, completely obscuring the Neuroi from view. Once the rainbow magic faded, nothing was left of the Neuroi but white fragments.
Yoshika turned toward her next target, but noticed that the younger 511th Fuso girls were taking it on.
Can they do it? Yoshika wondered.
Two of Yoshika's descendants, which were also Yusu's younger siblings, Rika and Haru, were fighting alongside the descendants of Fumika Kitagou, Junko Takei, and Tetsuko Wakamoto. Their names were Hitomi Kitagou, Mako Takei, and Kazumi Wakamoto, respectively.
Yoshika considered flying in to help them, but one of the veteran Fuso witches, Tetsuko Wakamoto, approached Yoshika. "Let them prove themselves."
Yoshika nodded and the two watched.
"Everyone! I will use my magic for us!" Mako said as she activated her inherited magic ability, Inspiration.
Feeling empowered, Rika, Haru, and Hitomi fired simultaneous Reppuzans at the Neuroi. They somehow know where to hit, as each one destroyed a core. In response, the remaining cores condensed, and the Neuroi fired hundreds of beams.
Rika and Haru generated shields on top of each other to protect the five from harm. Several beams made their way toward Yoshika, who merely raised a shield to deflect the beams in several directions, destroying many smaller Neuroi in the process.
After the Neuroi's beam barrage, Kazumi activated her magic, causing her hair to grow rapidly. She quickly pumped magic into her blade and charged at the Neuroi. She was met with a massive beam, but she cut it in half as she approached.
"Kakusei: Tsurugi no Sora! (Awakening: Sword of the Sky!)" Kazumi shouted as she dived toward her target. Greatly augmenting her blade with her Awakening Magic, she performed a stabbing motion with her sword and pierced clean through the colossal Neuroi, core and all, and exited through the bottom.
The Neuroi soon exploded into fragments. Rika, Haru, Hitomi, and Mako cheered at Kazumi.
"That was quite the technique," Yoshika praised.
"That's right," Tetsuko said. "It took me a month to develop it, and Kazumi mastered it in only two days. I'm proud to call her my great granddaughter."
"Your Awakening magic is incredible, too. It's different from the Awakened State, but it gives a similar, albeit hairy, result."
"When activated, Awakening magic drastically increases our power in a short burst. It's very similar to that Awakened State that you and several of our allies have."
"And she used it very well," Yoshika said. "I know our world will never have to worry about the Neuroi again, but I still feel at ease knowing that the younger generation is so capable."
Tetsuko nodded in agreement. "Indeed."
Shirley and Francesca found themselves supporting the 511th Liberion group. The group split off into teams of two.
Trude's descendant, Lionhardt Barkhorn, teamed up with Erica's descendant, Friedrich Hartmann, as usual. Shirley's descendants, Allison and Jaden Ventus, teamed up together. Luciana and Leonardo Lucchini, also teamed up. Johan and Alina Wilcke, Minna's descendants, combined their Area Analysis magic to help coordinate their comrades.
Shortly after the battle began, Sanya's descendant and Eila's descendant, Aleksandra Viktoriya "Tori" Kistanov and Aina Inari Virtanen, respectively, requested to go fight with the 511th European front. Lion contacted Valterri for them and the two arranged a trade. From the 511th European group, Elizabeth and Sophia Hartmann, traded places with Tori and Aina.
The Hartmann twins flew in with guns blazing, intent on taking down as many Neuroi as possible. They even empowered their shots with wind magic to quickly dispatch larger Neuroi.
Lion and Fried quickly moved to tag teaming the larger Neuroi. Lion flared up his Super Strength aura and pounded a nearby large type Neuroi to dust with one magic infused punch. He turned toward one of the many colossal Neuroi on the battle field - this one looking like a supersized battleship - and signaled Fried.
"Großer Trümmerschlag!" Lion slammed the oversized Neuroi with his fist and shattered a large portion of its body.
"Großer Sturm!" Fried followed up using the original method of employing the Sturm spell to barrel through the Neuroi.
Having destroyed four of the Neuroi's cores, the remaining cores merged. Unfortunately for the Neuroi, the cores merged in the open space that Fried destroyed when he barreled through. The two reacted before the Neuroi could regenerate.
"Luftdruck Faust!"
"Luftdruck Schlag!"
Lion and Fried simultaneously launched their techniques at the vulnerable core. Using his fist, Lion threw a fast, powerful punch toward the target using his magic to super compress the displaced air. He saturated the compressed air with his magic and launched it at the core. Fried's technique did virtually the same thing, only with the pummel of his glaive instead of using his fist.
Their pressurized air blasts hit the core and shattered it with the colossal Neuroi soon to mimic its core.
Not far away, Allison and Jaden were using their battle rifles. With each shot, they modified the speed of their shots, and using Gun Spells, they vastly enhanced the power of each round. Most of the smaller Neuroi fell with a single shot, and even large types took only a few shots.
"The Blade Spell users can eat it," Allison said.
"Haha, yeah," Jaden agreed. "Usin' the Power Shot, we can easily beat their Reppuzan stuff."
"Then there's our ace in the hole." Allison aimed down her sights and filled her entire drum with magic. "Rapid Fire!" She opened fire, emptying her entire one hundred round drum in less than five seconds into a colossal type Neuroi. Each shot had the same power as a single standard Reppuzan.
"Ha, good one, Sis. You Swiss cheesed it. But I think our real ace in the hole is this." Jaden popped a special round into his chamber, imbued it with magic, and fired. "Speed Breaker!" His round left the barrel with a muzzle velocity of roughly five thousand meters per second, pierced into the center of the massive Neuroi, where the surviving cores had coalesced, and completely vaporized the core and a large portion of the Neuroi's surrounding body.
"Hey, Ventus!" Lucy Lucchini shouted. "That was a good one, but you've got nothing on us!"
"We'll show you how it's done!" Leo Lucchini added.
"Bring it on Lucchini!" Allison replied with her fist on her chest. Francesca's ears perked up just then, and she turned to watch.
Lucy and Leo targeted the next colossal Neuroi and circled it several times each. Both left behind charges of explosive sunlight magic while dodging beams launched by the massive Neuroi. Once they were finished, they flew up to Allison and Jaden and snapped their fingers. Every charge detonated simultaneously, leaving behind nothing of the Neuroi.
"That's how it's done," the two Lucchinis said with a high five.
"Lookie, Francesca, our spawn are competing!" Shirley whispered to her Romagnan wingman.
"Should we, Shirley?"
"We should."
"Let's go!" Francesca took off toward the younger fighters. As soon as she caught up to them she said, "Wanna see something real showy?"
Lucy and Leo's eyes lit up, though Allison and Jaden were skeptical.
"Hehe, watch this!"
Shirley flew out in front of them, flared up her Ultimate Speed Aura, and raised her hands toward the scores of Neuroi. "Speed Force!" All at once, nearly one thousand small to medium sized Neuroi, as well as several large, super large, and even one colossal type Neuroi, suddenly and rapidly increased their speed, but they left behind red glints.
"Did you just...?" Allison muttered.
"I forcibly sped up every part of those Neuroi, except their cores.
"I'm counting one thousand three hundred and thirty seven Neuroi cores lying outside of their bodies," Johan reported over the radio. "What just happened?"
"Shirley Yeager just happened," Jaden replied.
"Now it's my turn!" Francesca cheered. She activated her own intense aura of solar power. "This is the pinnacle of Sunlight Magic, the Ultimate Solar Aura!"
"So are you going to use your Explosion Strike Ultimate with the Fragmentation augment?" Lucy asked.
"No," Francesca said just before she sped off toward the mass of Neuroi cores. They were spread out in a spherical space roughly three kilometers in diameter. Once she reached the center of the mass, she flung her arms to out to either side and her fiery aura of solar power flared outward at an incredible speed. "Solar Storm!"
Every Neuroi core ripped out from its host by Shirley was instantly incinerated, the bodies belonging to those cores shattered, and even some outliers that entered the spherical airspace where burned to ash. Francesca temporarily created what appeared to be a miniature sun.
"Whoa..." the four descendants said in unison, shortly before several others called over the radio asking what just happened.
Even the commanders from other units were asking about the three kilometer wide ball of fire visible from anywhere on the battlefield.
Francesca flew up to Shirley and the two shared a high five.
"That was one hell of a combo move," Allison commented, still in awe.
"Grandma Franny, I knew you were powerful, but..." Leo mumbled.
"Just how strong are the Strike Witches?" Lucy asked.
"Yeah, seriously," Jaden added.
Shortly after Valterri agreed with Lion to exchange two witches, Tori and Aina arrived at the 511th Europe front and joined up with their brothers.
The 511th Battle Commander, Rosalie Barkhorn, took charge and led a group of her teammates into battle.
Unlike their great grandmother and accomplished sniper of the 501st, Lynette Bishop, the Bishops of the younger generation mostly used assault rifles, though each did carry an AMMP rifle on their backs, which was the sniper rifle that Lynne used throughout most of the Third Neuroi War in the alternate future.
Caitlyn Bishop carried a specialized light machine gun of her own creation. It was capable of single fire, three round burst, and full automatic fire and was belt fed from a large backpack. Caitlyn's younger sister, Diana, and her younger cousin, James, used three round burst rifles with extended one hundred fifty round drums. The extra weight was no hindrance to any of them.
"Burst Shot!" Diana and James stuck mostly to taking out large type Neuroi. Using the three round burst version of the Power Shot, they fired bursts of three rounds imbued with magic at large type Neuroi. Each round dug deeper into the Neuroi's body, with the second or third destroying the core inside.
While Diana and James focused on large types, Caitlyn focused on taking out masses of smaller Neuroi that were easily destroy with one magic imbued shot each.
"Ballistic Barrage." Constantly imbuing her shots with magic, Caitlyn fired a spray of shots into the mass of Neuroi. Using her Ballistic Magic to control the trajectory of each shot, she missed no target. The weakness of that technique was that it requires so much magic usage and immense concentration, that she couldn't protect herself, so she had to pause every few seconds to play defense.
Seeing how effective Caitlyn's new technique was, Rosalie Barkhorn and Charles Clostermann decided to defend the Gun Spell prodigy, allowing her relentless assault.
"Jeez, Cate, how many rounds do you have on that belt?" Rosalie asked after estimating over five hundred shots were fired.
"About twenty five hundred," she answered in between sprays. "I would have made a five thousand round belt, but I can only manage twenty five hundred before I get low on magic."
"Hell, that's like firing twenty five hundred Reppuzans or Zauberschlags," Charles commented. "That's one hell of a technique you invented."
"Tell me about it. Diana and James won't shut up, asking me to teach it to them."
"I bet," Rosalie said. "Incoming. Cigar shaped super-large type. Charles?"
"I got this," he said. "Plusieurs Tonnerre!" He held his hand toward the Neuroi and struck it with a powerful lightning bolt that, after the initial strike, split off into several bolts and created a barrier of lightning around the entire Neuroi. The heat from the lightning was so great that it burned the Neuroi's body away until only the five cores were left. He then struck each core with lightning from the barrier.
"Hey, I recognize that!" Rosalie said. "You just mimicked something from the Railgun anime. Yeah, Mikoto Misaka did that to the AIM Burst creature in episode twelve of the first season!"
"Oh, really?" Charles asked. "I don't watch much anime, so I wouldn't know, but I have a feeling that's where the technique came from. Louise taught that to me, and I know her subordinates in the 511th Fuso Sector are crazy about that show. They probably got her to watch it with them."
"I've seen it, too. That Misaka can do some pretty crazy stuff with her electrical powers."
"Hmm, I might have to watch it. Might get some good ideas from it."
"I recommend it," Rosalie said. "Heads up! More Neuroi incoming. Five humanoids." Rosalie charged up to the closest one and slammed it with her fist. "Trümmerschlag!" She completely annihilated the first Neuroi in her path and proceeded on to the rest, taking out two with a single super strength influenced roundhouse kick, and the remaining two with the Todesschlag technique back to back.
"And another," Caitlyn said. "We have a colossal Neuroi launching drones at us."
"Scratch that, we have three colossal Neuroi launching drones at us," James said as he and Diana joined the group. "We can't focus on the colossal Neuroi with this many drones around."
"Let us help," Valterri called to them over the radio as he and six others were flying toward them. With him were Vitaliy, Sasha, Tori, and Aina, as well as their ancestors, Sanya and Eila.
"Well the whole group is here," Rosalie commented.
"All of you, split up the colossal Neuroi amongst yourselves in three groups," Sanya said. "Eila and I will handle all of the drones."
"All of them?" Valterri asked.
"That's kind of crazy, even for you two," Sasha added. "Those three Super Carriers are each launching at least one hundred every five seconds!"
"We can do it," Eila said as she and Sanya joined hands and flared up their auras.
"That's ultimate aura level..." Aina gasped.
As she activated her magic, Sanya's antenna turned red, then darker until black. She held her free hand out toward the mass of Neuroi drones. She released a wave of magic that expanded to roughly ten meters in all directions, forming what appeared to be a barrier. She then forced a pulse of magic outward from the barrier that traveled at a speed beyond what the eye could measure. Only Sasha, and Tori could sense it using their Magic Antenna.
"Did you just release a wave of radiation?" Tori asked.
"Magic radiation," Sanya told them. "Using the highest form of Radar Magic, which I call Spectroscopic Radar, I can sense all forms of electromagnetic radiation, not just radio waves. Using my magic, I can not only detect all types of radiation, but control them to a high degree."
"Since visible light is a type of electromagnetic radiation, can you make illusions?" Sasha asked.
"No, but I can blind anything that detects visible light, such as the human eye does," Sanya explained.
"What about sound waves?" Aina asked.
"Sound is a mechanical wave that requires a medium, not EMR waves," Valterri said.
"That's right," Sanya said. "With my magic, I basically can make you invisible to the Neuroi, but I cannot stop them from hearing you."
"We can sneak past the mass of drones then," Rosalie deducted.
"Exactly."
"Alright then," Valterri began. "I want Caitlyn, James, and Diana in one team; Rosalie, Charles, and myself in another; and Vitaliy, Sasha, Tori, and Aina in the third. That makes one team per Neuroi. What about you, Grandma Eila?"
"I'm using something more powerful than our ultimate ability, Influence," Eila answered as she closed her eyes. "Just like how Sanya can only use Spectroscopic Radar with her Ultimate Magic Aura, I can also do something at that level. I call it Sovereign Prophecy. I can do more than just influence the future I see with Foresight. With this, I can rewrite it."
"That has got to have some limitations," Valterri said.
"Yes, it does. I can't meddle with anything more powerful than myself, and the more powerful the target of my rewrite, the more difficult. You need to go now, my magic will take effect soon. You need to be at your target before the future I'm writing takes place. You'll have about a sixty second window where the Neuroi will ignore you even while you fight them."
"Couldn't you have done this from the beginning and save Sanya the trouble?" Rosalie asked.
"No," Sanya said. "Eila can't do this twice in a short time. She can give you up to sixty seconds, and then she has to wait ten minutes before her magic stabilizes enough to repeat it. This goes for me as well. I can't maintain my Spectroscopic Radar for very much longer, so you need to go! I can only give you another thirty seconds, then Eila's magic will take over."
"Roger that," Valterri said. "We can have further explanations about it later if need be. Let's go!"
"Roger!" each responded quickly before taking off toward their targets.
Each team split up and headed toward their targets. The hundreds of drones they passed by didn't notice they were there. As soon as they arrived at their targets, the three teams opened up on them, earning them the attention of the several hundred drones, not by visible light or radar detection, but by the sound of their gunfire and magical discharges.
As the three teams barraged the three colossal Neuroi, the three Neuroi began firing on their own drones. By the time the three teams finished off the three colossal Neuroi, the colossal Neuroi had finished off the drones, leaving a wide open space devoid of Neuroi.
"Well that worked like a charm," James commented.
"They really are legends," Charles commented.
"Yeah. The Legendary Strike Witches, and they are only two of them."
Eila gave Sanya a smile, who then gave Eila a quick peek on the cheek. "Good job, Eila."
"You too, Sanya."
The battle heated up at every point. Each group was pulling out all the stops to put away as many Neuroi as they could. Of the sixty thousand Neuroi, a collective estimate was that the Witch Forces had destroyed roughly eight thousand in the first half hour.
At that half hour mark, Doran and Michelle made a judgment call. Believing that enough Neuroi were taken down so that the various groups could stand their ground more easily, they called the four infiltrators to the southern tip.