Everyone needs a break now and then, and a day in Rome is just what the doctor ordered for Daniel! A day where he doesn't have to think about maintaining his fighter, craziness, or the Neuroi…yeah, right.
A couple of weeks after the jet striker incident, Lynne and Yoshika noticed that the kitchen was low on rice as they were preparing breakfast. As a matter of fact, they were low on a lot of foodstuffs – something that even Minna was starting to notice. Seeing as the Neuroi weren't expected to attack in the next few days, she decided to send the two friends on a much-needed shopping trip to Rome. As they prepared for the trip, Minna allowed them the opportunity to ask everyone else if there was something special they wanted brought back for them.
As they were asking around, Shirley and Francesca were assigned to accompany Lynne and Yoshika on the trip – as Francesca was a native to Rome, and Shirley could drive the big truck. At this, Lynne suddenly and inexplicably opted out of going, which confused Daniel and Yoshika. However, Daniel then took the opportunity to volunteer to go in Lynne's place, as there were a couple of things he wanted to look for himself.
As they got rolling in the truck towards Rome, things seemed fine enough, but then Daniel found out why Lynne opted out, as Shirley decided to speed up as soon as they were out of sight of the base. This made it an especially bumpy ride, made worse by the fact that there were sharp curves on cliffside roads and several jumps that Shirley decided to make. Once they came closer to the city, Shirley slowed down to a reasonable speed, but Daniel was still fuming inside – and trying to decide whether or not to ream Shirley out for unnecessarily putting their lives at risk!
As they drove through the city, Francesca exalted endlessly about what made Rome so great – not surprising as she grew up here. When they came up to one of the stores Francesca suggested for the trip, the three witches went inside to shop for the items everyone wanted, while Daniel went off on his own, saying that he would meet up with them a bit later.
After a few blocks, he came across a candy shop that Francesca had mentioned, saying that it was the best. Having nothing else to go on, and being a chocoholic himself, he went inside to see just how true that claim was. Apparently, Francesca wasn't kidding – this shop had just about every type of chocolate candy you could think of, including many pieces made with flavors that were distinctly Romagnan. Upon seeing the uniform, the shopkeeper welcomed him in gratitude and even offered a small discount for his purchase.
He decided to take advantage of the offer and got several boxes of various chocolates and truffles. First, he chose three small boxes – one each for him, Yoshika (as a good onii-chan would do), and Erica. He knew that Erica had asked for candy, but wasn't likely to get it if he didn't do something, knowing that Trude had Yoshika put down an alarm clock for her instead. 'Everyone deserves to get what they asked for on this trip,' he thought to himself.
He also got a larger box for Sasha. He figured this would be a good belated birthday gift for her. Although he had been present in St. Petersburg for her birthday just before he was ordered elsewhere, he wasn't able to get anything special for her at the time (as there was nothing available and no way to order anything at that time). He still wanted to be a good boyfriend and get her something special, and he figured this would definitely fit the bill. He arranged to have the larger box shipped to St. Petersburg, and even paid the shopkeeper a little extra for his trouble.
When Daniel returned to the general store where the other three had been earlier, he found Shirley and Yoshika starting to look for where Francesca had gone off to. This was a problem because, although Shirley and Yoshika had been able to get all of the requested items on the list, Francesca had the money given to them by Commander Minna to buy the food supplies. While Shirley was confident that they would be able to find her quickly, saying that she couldn't have gone far, Daniel was less sure, thinking that she could be anywhere.
Daniel's worries soon turned out to be warranted, as the three of them searched for Francesca for hours without finding so much as a trace (though Yoshika did manage to find a stray cat). At one point, they took a break at a café, with Shirley about ready to give up out of exhaustion. When Yoshika tried some of the cake she had ordered, she declared it the best cake in the world, to which Shirley agreed when she tried it. They then proceeded to order a few more pieces of cake. Daniel couldn't help but chuckle at this – while it was definitely very good cake, he wouldn't go THAT far.
As they were driving around searching, Shirley got an idea of where Francesca might be. As they were driving towards the spot, the air raid siren suddenly went off, indicating that a Neuroi was headed towards the city. When they reached the spot – St. Peter's Square – they spotted Francesca sliding down from one of the tall rooftops and called out to her. Luckily, the three witches had brought their striker units with them – just in case of an emergency. With his fighter being too big to bring, Daniel would be a lookout from the ground and direct them as needed via radio.
As they all got into their striker units and took off, Francesca started to get ahead of the other two, anxious to get into the battle to protect her hometown. Soon, Shirley and Yoshika were able to catch up to her, reminding her that they were there to help protect her home as well. Over the radio, Daniel told them to get ready – that the Neuroi was coming in at high noon.
As they began to engage in a dogfight against the Neuroi, it was clear that it was not expecting a real fight, as it struggled to defend itself from the combined attacks of the three witches. Soon, the core was exposed, and as Yoshika distracted it with her giant shields, Francesca used her inherent magic, which used multiple layers of shields, to blast right through the Neuroi, destroying the core and completely annihilating the body before any real damage could be done to the city.
She then went towards one of the nearby rooftops and took a young girl around their age into her arms and took them up further into the sky. Shirley, Yoshika, and Daniel could only watch in confusion, wondering who the girl was, and why Francesca was carrying her like that. Soon enough, however, they all came back to the square and landed.
As they prepared to leave to go back to the base, Francesca introduced her new friend Maria to rest of the group. A very pleasant young lady, she had apparently been out when Francesca had rescued her from a couple of would-be thugs (based on Francesca's description). After that, Francesca had learned that this was Maria's first time in the city and had therefore taken it upon herself to show Maria everything that Rome had to offer.
However, this also included joining up with a bunch of young kids for some of their fun, which involved gelato, pizza, a fancy restaurant, and a relatively high-end clothing store, which depleted the money Francesca had on her – the same money Minna had given them to buy the food supplies. Daniel slapped his forehead, as he knew this meant an unpleasant evening for all of them, and especially Francesca, when they returned to base.
Maria was fascinated to meet the witches – she said she had never met one before meeting Francesca. When she was introduced to Daniel, she became even more fascinated, as she had only heard about the Jedi as legends. While she was definitely very friendly and pleasant to be around, they had to get back. Before they left, Maria expressed her gratitude for everything Francesca had done for her that day – and to the rest for helping to defend the city – saying that she now knew what she needed to do while she was there.
When they returned to base, Minna and Mio were extremely cross at Francesca, as expected, for blowing their entire food budget on her frivolity. As punishment, she was ordered the next day to scrub the entire deck outside of the hangar. Mio also snapped a bit at Shirley for not watching Francesca carefully enough and letting her wander off.
As everyone else went inside, the various personal items were passed out. Yoshika gave Trude the dress she requested for Chris; Minna got the radio she asked for; Lynne got her tea and flower seeds, which Perrine would help to plant around the base; Sanya got a small cat carving; Eila got herself a nice pillow; and Erica got an alarm clock (though she didn't actually ask for it). Erica was bemoaning the fact that she didn't get candy when Daniel came to her room, and put his finger over his lips to tell her to keep quiet as he handed her a box of chocolates. Her face immediately lit up, as she hugged him out of happiness.
As he returned to the main hall, Minna had plugged in the radio and everyone started listening to the news report. The broadcaster announced that Maria, the Dutchess of Romagna, was about to make a public address to the people. As they began to listen to her address, Daniel couldn't help but think that her voice sounded very familiar. When she began describing the Neuroi attack from the day before, she specifically thanked, among others, "my dear friend, Miss Francesca Lucchini." At this, everyone in the room had their jaws dropping in shock. 'Holy crap!' Daniel thought, 'her friend from yesterday was the Dutchess?'
They then heard a crash coming from just outside the hangar where Francesca was, as Maria stated that as a token of her appreciation, she would be sending food supplies to the 501st Joint Fighter Wing. Everyone then ran out to the hangar, and saw that it was true – a Romagnan Air Force supply plane had dropped off their much-needed food supplies, and Francesca literally had everything dumped on her.
As Shirley gave her a hand to help her out of the pile of crates, Daniel said to Francesca, "Someone up there must really like you, because you just got VERY lucky." Francesca gave Daniel a look of confusion, at which Daniel and Shirley explained that her friend Maria was, in fact, the Dutchess of Romagna. All she could do was give a screech of absolute shock as everyone gathered around to help unload the supplies.
A couple of weeks later, Daniel heard a screech of a much different kind – one of excitement and gratitude – over the phone, as Sasha received his belated birthday gift by the time Daniel was next able to give her a call.
So Daniel gets to be the good brother and good friend, as well as the good boyfriend – going the extra mile to get Sasha something special there. Plus, it seems that the 501st now has a friend in high places. Not exactly a holiday, but definitely not the most stressful situation he's faced.