Neuroi. The enemy of humanity. The invader. Had been defeated.
A remarkable victory for all. Worthy of praise that could sing for generation after generation.
A happy end to everyone.
Then again…
A happy end…isn't always permanent.
It was all good and then. We rebuilt from the crumble of the old. Brick by brick. A foundation for the new civilization. Technology and science developed, catching up to its time.
As time went by and life moved on.
Things…many things were changed along the way.
The people. The mindset. The ideology. Politics.
Some small countries were united and became a big nation.
Some big nation was torn apart and became smaller ones.
Territory lines were redrawn on the map time and time again.
And here is a question for you.
When the enemy of humanity was gone, no longer to look forward to.
The weapons we built.
The men with patriotic hearts we recruited.
The magic power of Witches.
Whom do we use them on?
…
You have the answer?
Yup, right among ourselves.
Human versus Human. Just like in those old history books. What our ancestors have done long before the Neuroi came.
And we're pretty amazed of how we were very, very good at it.
But the war did not start on by a decision of a dictator, or the first drop of blood from some assassination.
It was from the skies.
The vast dark blue skies that my great grandma and her sister-in-arms had flew up there, side by side to fight the Neuroi.
Ulysses. We called it. A large asteroid that would hit our Earth in its own course.
It was the end to mankind, many said.
But of course, we didn't twiddle our thumbs around and wait for that imminent doom.
Like fighting the Neuroi, we're stubborn after all, and we were quickly to find a way to prevent it.
Every nation across the globe poured every available resource they have into building a gigantic defensive weapon network, Stonehenge.
Towering, massive railguns. They're capable of destroying the asteroids.
And they are energy suckers. They would swallow battery after battery like a baby eating candies.
If not thanks to the Witches and their magic power. The Stonehenge would be impossible to be fully operated.
There were four Stonehenge facilities set up across the Earth. One in China. One in Western Europe. One in Liberion, and the last one in South Africa.
The year was 1999 when Ulysses was coming close to Earth's orbit.
Stonehenge has done its purpose like it should, however…Ulysses has one more trick up its sleeve.
It was in that moment. The spark of war between human and human was truly ignited.
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Oceania Continent – Coral Islands / / 21° 53' 2'' S 166° 8' 28'' E
1405hrs. August 14th, 2019
When she was a little girl, she always thought that blue sky above her was always so vast, and nothing, nothing can taint its beautiful color…until now…
Flying high in the altitude of two thousand meters, she saw multiple columns of dense black smokes rising up from burning facilities, destroyed military vehicles and planes.
Radioed voices were scrambled all over the channel along with statics within the headsets she was wearing.
Pity, was what she could give to those soldiers below, who were in fact, her enemy.
Then again, it's only brief, because at this moment, she was in the mid of pursuing one bandit.
"Haah…haah…hahh…"
In this chase, she was the hunter, after all, her familiar was a wolf, hence explaining why she was having a pair of wolf ears on her head and a fur tail sticking out at her rear.
However, as the chase was on, she slowly found herself was on the receiving end of it. In just a blink of an eye, the hunter has become the hunted.
This was her fifth sortie, but she had downed a good number of enemy aircrafts. She was confident about her skill, no one can best her, when she has the magic power of a Witch and her Striker Unit, a so-called broomstick which had helped the humanity to fight the Neuroi back in the past.
When technology developed over time, so did the Striker Unit. Cladding around her bare legs was a third generation Striker Unit called MiG-21, with similar design from Orussia MiG-21 fighter jet's engine.
Besides her Strikers, in her hands was a Degtyaryov hand-held machinegun, a weapon belonged to her great grandma whom used it to fight the Neuroi. It has been passed down from her to her daughter, her daughter to her daughter as a relic, a family heirloom.
The girl often wondered if it would dishearten or upset her great grandma if she learned that her great granddaughter was using it to take…lives, human lives in this war, a war which Neuroi no longer had its presence.
Her objective was to escort the bombers to deliver their payload onto a Liberion's air base set up on an island near to Australis.
The job was supposed to be simple…hah, how simple always invited complications.
Before the first batch of bombers could have reach to the targets, they were downed by enemy reinforcement.
The enemies were no greenhorns, that she could tell. They're good. Not just the pilots, but their Witch as well.
With visual, she confirmed that one enemy Witch had downed three Tu-95 bombers all by herself without anyone help.
Such performance was not often seen from those greedy capitalists, perhaps they're belonged to ARRF (Allied Rapid Reaction Forces).
That Witch is good, she mentally thought. Let's how good she is when she faces me.
She directed her magic energy into her Striker's thrusters, bringing herself toward to the enemy Witch in high speed.
She had experiences in a dog fight. No fighter plane could outmaneuver her in air combat. She even had downed two Liberion Witches back in her previous sorties, but it was not something she'd like to brag about.
However, she quickly realized that she may had chewed more than she could.
With a fast beating heart, she increased her speed, chasing the bandit before her into the clouds.
The target was fast, and nimble. It moved in a zig-zag pattern to avoid being locked on.
Every shot she fired, the enemy Witch successfully evaded them all at ease.
She caught a glimpse of that Witch, a petite girl was wearing a dark blue-colored Striker Unit F-4 Phantom II and a…blue ribbon on the back of her head.
The Witch then swiftly descended herself down to a certain small island where the anti-air guns were reduced to scrapped metals.
She continued making the pursuit, but before she realized it, the target was already disappeared.
She soon decreased her speed and scanned around the sector.
Where is she?
The target was no longer in her sight.
"Where is she…?"
Suddenly, a cold shiver run through her entire back.
Behind me!
The Witch turned herself in a 180 degree along with a spray of 7.62x39mm rounds from her light machine gun. Once the gun's barrel was cooled down, no one was there, except the clouds remained its form.
But she was there, the Witch thought. A certain dreadful feel was swelling up inside her chest.
Among the distant roaring of planes' engines mixed in along with explosions, a sound of cannon cried out sharply. Calibers were whistling, indicating that they're coming toward her!
Quick on her feet, the Witch deployed her magic shield, successfully stopping the projectiles. They came from a certain fighter jet.
The attack didn't stop there. It swooped down like a hawk while releasing two missiles from its wings.
"Not so fast!" She cried out as she enhanced her shield, taking the missiles head on. Violent explosion promptly occurred. As soon as the dense smoke and fire were dismissed away, the Witch was remained unharmed.
In anger, she quickly registered the dark blue-colored F-4 Phantom II as her new target.
Just when she leveled up her weapon to splash that flying bandit…
A crispy gunshot. Even though she was in the middle of an air battle, yet it so loud and so close to her location.
Slowly, she turned her head to look over her shoulder, only to see there was a Witch, holding a battle rifle.
There was a faint smoke coming out from its barrel.
She then began to feel…light headed. She wondered why.
She quietly placed a hand on her head, only to find there was some red liquid.
Blood? Was it coming from her head?
…yes, it was indeed.
For some reason, her mind started to review all those moments briefly, the moment when she was an innocent child, when she first discovered her Witch power, when she enlisted into the army, to fight for her country, her father's face, her mother's face, her grandma, her great grandma's face and her friends…
Before the blackness took over her consciousness, she registered two things or just one thing.
That blue-colored aircraft and the silver-haired Witch, they're both bearing the same emblem on their tail, like an infinity symbol…no…it was…a blue ribbon…just like that Witch was wearing it on her head.
Soon, the Striker's running engine supplied by the Witch's power soon ceased, rendering her to free fall like a rock, straight down to the portion of the island below, allowing the lush green land to consume her.
"Bandit is down." The silver-haired witch wearing blue ribbon announced her kill to AWASC.
« Copy that, Mobius 2. Do you have any visual on the chute? »
"Negative. Enemy is KIA."
Her diamond blue eyes still kept on the location where the enemy witch had felled. She couldn't see the body, but it was there.
Naturally, no one could have survived that fall, not even for the witch.
« Bandit confirmed at vector 3-5-0. » AWASC updated the battle situation. « Allenfort Air Base is on the nose. »
« This is Allenfort. We're under attack! The runway and facilities are hit! » The voice cried out hysterically along with the ringing siren in the background.
« Mobius team, intercept them. »
AWASC's order was soon responded from the said team.
« This is Mobius 1. Copy. » replied the male pilot flying the blue-colored F4.
"Mobius 2…Copy."
« Still alive there, sis? » asked Mobius 1.
"Yeah, no need to worry, bro."
« Copy that. » He chuckled.
Cocking the weapon in her hand, Mobius 2 then flew straight into the heat of on-going air battle.
Gaining on a Tu-95 bomber flying on a low altitude, Mobius 2 aimed her battle rifle through its iron sight toward the crew's cock pit and opened fire.
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