Recently I read a story in which a fleet of future vessels are thrown back in time and to another universe, specifically the one in Strike Witches. I forget the name of the story that did this and I'm sure someone will mention it and I'll include the name of it and who it was per what I normally do when I namedrop stories. But that being said, I wanted to do something similar but with the insane flashiness of the Ace Combat series.

For the timeline, this will be in our near future (within 10 years) and as for Strike Witches in the second season. I will state this outright, there will be no pairings between our near-future characters and the ones inside Strike Witches for more than one reason, and you can bare minimum guess one of them yourself.

Summary: A storm transports a multinational fleet in the middle of naval exercises through transdimensional bullshittery to another world where an alternate, past version of their world where young women with magical powers fight against transdimensional(?) aliens.

Disclaimer: I own nothing other than my desktop and copy of MS Word. All vessel names, while keeping in line with the naming conventions their classes are apart of are, at the time of writing, fictional.

XxXxXxX

[Daredevil – Ace Combat 7 OST]

A black and red object ripped across the sky in a great screech, red unnatural fire streaming out the back. After it flew a larger craft that was more of a grey-black with blue-tinged flame tails flowing out from behind it. In front of it, just behind where for a brief moment a pilot could be seen, a cone of air was around it like some kind of halo. For those observing, they would have heard a loud explosion after it passed them in the blink of an eye. The lightning-fast craft struggled to keep a line of fire on the missile but kept persevering.

'So, I guess you're wondering what the hell a Navy fighter-jockey riding an F-35 is doing chasing down a missile. To be frank, so am I. But this all starts several months ago, back when the Navy was conducting the semi-annual Pacific Wargames.'

XxXxXxX

Many, many months ago.

"I don't like the look of this, sir," an officer on the bridge of the carrier Enterprise, the ninth ship in history to carry the historic name, reported to his superior. His Jersey twang clearly breaking through the silence of the bridge. "The seas are getting rough and weather reports are that there may be a typhoon brewing."

The captain of the vessel took a sip of his coffee which bore the Navy emblem on one side and his ship's insignia and tag on the other. He drank his coffee like any other sailor or marine would: black. He weighed his options which were limited. After all, this wasn't an actual combat scenario but a simulation. "Send the all-clear signal, we're retreating to Pearl to wait out the storm. We'll resume when it has passed," he reported.

"Aye, sir." The order was echoed to the various navies participating this year. The US, Japanese, Korean, and Russian navies all responded in the affirmative. Ships maneuvered into a massive flotilla while submarines surfaced around them as they all steamed towards a currently friendly port. The signal was pre-arranged in advance in the case of emergencies where the exercise needed to be canceled or put on hold. Typhoon? That qualified.

XxXxXxX

Deep inside the ship, below the hangar, a pilot sat in his bunk tossing a baseball just high enough where the apex just missed hitting the ceiling. He would catch it before tossing it again. And again. And again. That pilot? It's me. Why am I in my room? I'm just passing time until we get back to Pearl. The entire exercise was called off because of a tropical storm that may become a typhoon. Pilots got a little more space than the other enlisted men and women. The space was just large enough for a regulation-sized bed a small end table which was just high enough to be considered a desk with a matching chair, and a dresser underneath said bed. My name? I'm-.

"Taggert," I hear my wingman call from the bulkhead's doorway. Lieutenant James Anderson III. Yes, his father and grandfather are also names James. Irish heritage and yes, he had pale skin and red hair just like you'd imagine an Irish heritage stereotype to match. Yes, my last name is Taggert, first name Edward.

"What's going on, Jim?" I ask as I catch the baseball again. I felt the ship shift as the port side was hit by a wave generated by the storm. Looks like the storm got here faster than expected.

"Cap wants us to give our planes and equipment a once-over while we're in transit. Apparently, the first thing on the docket is a simulated dogfight with the Ruskies and the Japanese."

"And the mechanics can't? I mean, it's in their job description."

"They're busy securing the rest of loose objects topside before it gets any worse."

[Inane things happen here, show off more of the team.]

The ship shook as the lights went out. There were shouts of momentary panic while everyone tried to figure out what was going on. The lights came on and nothing was going on, even the waters appeared to be calmer.

"Anyone know what's going on?!" someone shouted.

[Everyone tries to get their bearings and figure out what's going on. In response to this a scouting sortie is scrambled.]

The sea was calm and two F-35s sat on the catapults ready for launch. I checked over my gauges and equipment and gave the crew chief a thumbs up. Over the radio, the tower operator's voice came on, "Strider 3 and 4, you are cleared for takeoff."

The 'shooter' on the deck pointed and my plane was launched via the catapult off the deck. Under the plane's own power, I maneuvered it to the plotted course that was discussed in the ready room. Anderson and I brought our planes to 30,000 feet and continued to cruise along at just under subsonic speeds. My partner and I kept an eye on our passive radars since there was no satellite coverage and we were pretty much blind. There was an explosion in the distance and Anderson was the first to notice it. "Did you see that?" he asked.

"Yeah, looks like some kind of explosion." Without waiting for an order, we proceeded in that direction. As we got closer something popped up on the radar. The signature was abnormal in size. According to this it was the size of a small warship but flying. Tapping the radar console did nothing as I considered that whatever happened to get us here had screwed with our electronics. "You getting that too on radar?"

"The large signature? I thought that was just me."

It didn't take long until we were on it, well several thousand feet below us. It sort of looked like a giant fish or something that was flying through the air. It looked so… alien. It then shot several beams of red light together like the Death Star did in Star Wars and fired it at a surface target below. Looking closer it appeared to be a small surface ship. A destroyer, perhaps. Looking at the flag from this distance, it looked like it had the old Italian coat of arms. "Enterprise, this is Strider-3. We have a hostile unknown attacking a surface fleet. Requesting permission to engage," I report.

"Go again, Strider-3? There's a surface fleet?"

"Yes. And they're under attack by a Geiger-looking reject," Anderson chimed in.

"Stand by," the operator said as the line went quiet. The ships below started to fire on it using large-caliber shells. Looking closer, I saw that one of them was a battleship. Then there was something swarming it and small potmarks appeared on the craft followed by small explosions. "Strider, you have the green light to engage. Pick your targets and fire at will."

"Wilco. Let's go, Jim." The two of us maneuvered down in a downward angle.

I lined up a shot and aimed with my missiles, locking on. "Strider-3, Fox 2."

"Strider-4, Fox 2." Twin missiles streamed towards the craft at Mach 3.

XxXxXxX

Mio could be having a better day right now. Having to take on a Neuroi ship alone which was decimating an allied fleet was stressful in and of itself. Now, she had to hold out for who knew how long until Yoshika could get her Striker repaired. She fired but no matter how many rounds she put down on the Neuroi it had no impact on it. It fired a laser at her but she countered it with her shield. She could keep going for a while, but she had no idea how long she could keep doing it. As she was about to take another hit, two explosions emerged from the top of the Neuroi ship. Two black blurs sped past the Neuroi and then she heard the screaming roar as they went past a split-second later. They broke up and lined up shots. As they did, she saw that they were clearly planes, but nothing that she had seen before. Then they let out a horrible sounding 'brrt' as smaller explosions came over the Neuroi's hull followed by those planes again screaming past. The Neuroi reacted but didn't seem to see these craft. She could clearly see them and yes, they moved fast; but this didn't mean that the Neuroi couldn't hit them considering how fast Strikers could move and Neuroi were able of hitting these things before. There was something different about them.

[Rest of Episode 2 plays out as is albeit with some additional missile strikes]

"Strider-3 to Enterprise tower. It looks like some of the surface ships are slowly sinking and the other ships in their fleet are far enough away to not render assistance in time," I report.

"Copy, Strider-3. Seahawks are being scrambled for priority rescue and destroyers for the rest. Stay on station and keep an eye on things."

"Wilco, tower." I changed the frequency to an open channel. "Attention surface fleet: this is Lieutenant Edward Taggert of Strider squadron. Help is on the way. Repeat, help is on the way."

"This is Venezia battleship Littorio, we appreciate your rescue efforts to recover our countrymen. I must ask, what country and ship did you launch from? There's not much in the way of land in the direction you came," an older man's voice came over. He had a heavily accented Italian accent. Though what made me raise an eyebrow was the nation: Venezia.

"United States carrier Enterprise," I responded.

There appeared to be a sigh of relief. "You have no idea how relieving that Liberion forces are in these waters."

I swapped the channels. "Tower, be advised: natives are using unknown nation designations and believe that the United States is that of Liberion."

"We heard, Strider. For now, maintain their assumption of who we are. The captain will deal with the politics and minutia of our situation."

"Wilco, tower."

XxXxXxX

Mio looked at the black planes as they circled in the sky for some time before they turned to fly south. "Let's follow them," Mio suggested.

"What?" Mayafuji asked.

"They saved us, the least we can do is thank them."

Mayafuji thought this over. Mio was always the eternal optimist, while good can also be considered 'blinders' in hindsight. Mio had a good track record with these types of things. Deferring to her judgment she nodded but added, "Only us though. We aren't quite sure who they are and if they see an entire squadron of Witches approaching them, they may consider it an attack."

Mio, carrying Mayafuji on her back, flew in the same flight path that the two black planes did. Using her magical sight, Mayafuji saw a massive fleet of unknown ship types in the distance. On the flags that she should see were what looked like national flags that looked similar to the nations of the world, but were different. The sizes of the ships were massive. They were larger than anything she had ever seen before. The only ships that could compare in size would be the Taihou, Yamato, and the Shinano. The formations were similar to Liberion carrier escort formations where the carrier was in the center of the battlegroup and all other escort ships around it.

"They're absolutely massive," Mayafuji muttered under her breath.

"Unidentified craft: you are flying in a restricted zone. Identify yourself," a man's voice came over the radio signals that their communications device was picking up.

"I am wing commander Ichiro Mayafuji of the 501st joint air wing. I wished to issue my thanks to your rendering of aid against the Neuroi."

There was a pause before, "Please stand by," was returned. During this bit of silence, she saw as some of the destroyer-sized ships separate from the group and headed towards that Venezian sinking ships. The two planes from earlier also landed on the largest carrier which was launching two more planes of the same type as well as another propeller plane that had a large disc on top of it which flew high into the clouds.

"This is Thomas Emmerson, captain of the Enterprise," a different man's voice came on. This one was much older than the radio operator. "Commander Mayafuji, I assume it would be safe to say that you are an… authority on these… Neuroi, as you call them?"

Mayafuji sensed that these people had no idea what the Neuroi were. "Yes, you could say that my squadron and I are authorities on the subject," she replied.

There was silence once more for a few minutes before the same man came on again. "Commander, I extend my hospitality to you to come aboard the Enterprise and discuss these Neuroi further."

"Thank you, captain."

The radio operator came on again, "Please take heading 270 and approach the canted runway at speed 120 knots."

XxXxXxX

"Sir, this wing commander could be an enemy," Emmerson's aide stated.

"Yes, they could be. This is why two F-15Es from Broadsword squadron were launched with AWACS callsign 'Sideburn'. They'll scout where those ships were heading towards, likely a port of call, and the surrounding area while keeping an eye on the destroyers. If they do mean us harm then they'll launch their payload of anti-ship missiles to target capital ships." The fast, moving mini-craft started to approach the flight deck. "Plus, I don't think they'll try anything with fully armed marines on standby."

He left the pilothouse and made his way to the deck. As he stepped onto the deck, he was shocked to see what was two Japanese schoolgirls wearing swimsuits standing on his deck. One had machinery on her legs while the other had a sword on her back. They both had animal looking ears and tail as well. To say it was weird was an understatement. Pretending that there was nothing wrong he walked up to them as the one in a white suit helped the one in the blue suit out of the machinery revealing she wasn't wearing some kind of prosthetics but some kind of cybernetics.

"Welcome aboard the USS Enterprise," he greeted as if nothing was wrong about this whole situation and held out a hand.

"Thank you for having us aboard, captain," the white-suited one said with a heavily accented English and shook his hand firmly.

"We have much to discuss, please, this way." He led the way to the boardroom. He offered them spare jumpsuits which they did accept considering their state of undress and reading the room of how uncomfortable it was. When they were brought back to the boardroom by one of the female Marines, they all sat down and he said, "So, tell me about these Neuroi."

To be continued…?

XxXxXxX

Alright, so I'm well aware that I cut out a lot of material here and one reason is that I had no idea how to really get it written out. More-so that I couldn't decide how to do it. First-person, third-person, etc. So, I just decided to just cut it out entirely for future-me to figure out. But that being said, I really wanted to get this idea down to either explore it further or inspire someone to explore it perhaps. Well, I also cut it out because I have no idea how long it would take me otherwise to get it done as well since I have another idea that I want to explore; actually, there are quite a few ideas that I wanted to explore but this one wouldn't leave my mind since I've been reading a few Strike Witches crossovers that have been pretty good. There is definitely one scene that I wanted to do but would have been an extra (it may be something I come back to) which is a bunch of the members of the US and SDF Navy personnel seeing and getting a once-in-a-lifetime chance to tour a still working Yamato. For those of us invested in naval history, we would kill for that chance considering both Yamato-class vessels were sunk and the Shinano (a Yamato-class retrofit to a carrier) was also sunk. Yeah, I may come back to that idea for an add-on chapter to this repository because it would be fun to geek out on that.

Anyway, though, let me know what you think and I'll see you in whatever I decide to do next.